I’m a bit worried for Colt. That’s the first time he’s actually killed a person. It’s a lot different than killing an animal. At least he stuck with me once the rain began and we made our way to the Tower.

When we arrive there, I tell Colt to stop, and he stops, not moving, gaze focused downward. I give him a quick glance before looking at the person who’s looking for me.

He’s around forty, but he only looks to be in his mid-twenties. White hair, and icy blue eyes, dressed in whites and blues, but covered in blood and sitting on a bench, looking ready to drop at any moment.

“Come on,” I tell Colt, and he follows me over to the man, who doesn’t look up when we arrive. “What do you want, Michael?”

“Huh?” He looks up at me, his gaze unfocused, distant. “Highness? Your Highness?”

Dammit!

“My name is Tyler,” I state. “You’re dazed and out of it. I was one of your students, before I left.”

“Highness,” he slides off the bench and kneels.

Well, tries to – he starts to fall over.

“I’m not a prince,” I sigh after helping him back onto the bench. “I was just one of your students. What are you doing here? Why are you bloody?”

“Demons,” he says. “Your father asked for you to come home. We need the might of the Rising Ice to stop them. Please come home, Highness.”

He coughs a few times, then falls over, no longer breathing.

If he didn’t die just then, I probably would have ripped his heart out of his chest. I ran away from home because of the Rising Ice. That, and that they wanted to control every aspect of my life and future.

But if it’s severe enough that Father would send Michael to request of me to bring me home, then it’s probably something bad. What demons?

“Colt,” I look at him, and he’s just staring at Michael. “I’m going home, but I don’t want to. I’d rather be hanging out and having fun with my best friend. Do you want to come with me?”

Colt just nods.

“Alright,” I put a hand on his shoulder and smile, looking him in the eyes. “Then let’s get going!”

Colt nods, and I tell him that we should race to the docks, then take off. Colt follows, but not next to me. I don’t feel good about beating him this time.

I pay for the tickets, then we wait for the airship, boarding it when they call our flight. It takes us two days to reach the docks at the town nearest to my mountain, and Colt had nightmares both nights.

“Hey,” I say after we get off the airship, then point at the mountain in the distance. “Do you see that mountain?”

Colt nods.

“That’s where I grew up,” I tell him. “It’s really, really cold up there. To me, this air down here is pretty warm, and the air in Loritar was burning! You’ll probably freeze, you go up there! So let’s get you a coat or something, okay?”

Colt nods, and follows me to a store. I buy him a parka, and he pulls it on. He’s still wearing shorts, but I don’t want to try to get him to change those right now. Hopefully, we won’t have to worry about his legs freezing. I know most guys don’t.

The trip to the mountain is two days on horseback, and I gained a Skill for that on the way. Once we make it to the little town at the bottom, though, we have to abandon the horses.

To them, the trail goes to a point where some rare flowers are, but in reality, it goes far beyond that, leading all the way up to my kingdom. There’s a powerful illusion there that only my people can see through, though anyone can pass through it.

We spend the night in the town at the base, telling them that we’re just here to collect one of those flowers. Colt and I get different rooms tonight, and while I’m sleeping, something wakes me up.

I’m not sure what it is, and scan the room, eventually making out a figure standing beside my bed. It’s about the rise size.

“Colt?”

“He’s sleeping,” the person says.

“And you are officially creepy.”

“Right?” He giggles. “I couldn’t figure out how to work the lights in here, so I just gave up and woke you up.”

“What are you, a god?”

“Yup!” He giggles. “So I know the two of you are focusing on Aura and stuff, but haven’t really trained, beyond that one thing. Your people use magic.”

“I know,” I sit up and face whoever the god is. “Sorry for not bowing to you – oddly, I can’t sense your Divinity.”

“I can conceal it at will,” he giggles. What is he, drunk? “Nah, not drunk. Your hair, though! It’s so funny!”

“What?” I ask, then mess with my hair, pulling it down. “I need a haircut.”

“I know!” He laughs. “It was all spiky and stuff! It looked so funny!”

“I’m not bowing to you for that.”

“You don’t worship me,” he says. “I wouldn’t expect you to bow to me!”

“Who are you?”

“A god!”

“You’re going to make me guess, aren’t you?”

“Yup!” He says. “But not right now. Colt’s not happy, and he’s still dealing with killing that woman. He needs to see something truly incredible from someone very, very close to him. You have two weeks before you need to get moving, to return home. Why don’t you focus on increasing your Mana Pool, so you can use Rising Ice?”

I nearly cut off his head, then remember that he’s a god, and that probably wouldn’t bode well for me. Trying, that is.

I wouldn’t succeed against a god.

“I don’t ever want to use that,” I say.

“I know,” he says. “But you are the only person who can, and it’s effect is beautiful enough that Colt will come out of his daze. He’ll compete against you – turn it into a game!”

“It’ll help Colt?” I ask. “Are you sure? You’re not trying to trick me, are you?”

“I’m not!” He laughs. “I’d never do anything to hinder Colt! I promise – it’ll help him!”

“I’ll do it, then!”

Divine Quest: Waking Dragons I

Wake the dragon sleeping within you, and bring Colt out of his murder-induced state and back to his fun-filled one

Requirement: Reach 200 Mana and cast Rising Ice

Reward: Massive Experience, Instant Access to a Divine Dungeon, Beginner’s Ice Tome

Accept: Y/N?

“A Divine Dungeon?” I ask, wondering just how massive the Experience boost is going to be, as well as why he’s calling it ‘dragon’.

“Yes,” he says. “The System is changing again. Now, Level 50 is the cap. Once you reach the Second Tier, you’ll be able to apply one basic Class to gaining Stat Points every Level, as long as you’ve already taken on that Class. The amount of Experience needed will increase every Level, with it growing harder every fifth Level. The last five Levels of any Tier will each be more difficult than any other Level from that Tier.

“Anyone already above it,” he says. “Has been moved down to Level 50, the Quest granted. To reach the Second Tier, you’ll need to do a Divine Dungeon. For now, you can complete them as a team, but that might change, if that’s too easy. Divine Dungeons are much, much harder than other Dungeons, and they’re forming across the world as we speak. You and Colt are both Level 49 now – I hope you two have lots of fun in the Divine Dungeon!”

The god vanishes, and I realize who that was.

Tyr, the God of Fun and Games – the god that trained Colt.

I turn back in for the night, confused as hell about what just happened. I understand about Levels being changed again, but why does Tyr want me to use that spell? He’s got to know why I don’t want to, and why I ran away to avoid using it.

It’s one I know instinctively, and I’m not sure how. Only once ever several generations is one of our people born with the power to cast it. The others can perform the chant all they want, but they’ll never cast the spell itself.

In the morning, Colt is acting weird, and I ask him if he’s alright with us staying for two more weeks.

“My people use magic,” I explain to him. “And they’ll probably see me as behind on magic, so I want to gain a little bit of Mana, before I return. We can race to see who reaches 250 Mana first.”

“Isn’t that supposed to take a long time?” He asks.

“We have 5 Talent and 3 or 4 Mana to start,” I grin at him. “Want to bet we can do it faster than most?”

“I don’t care,” he shrugs.

“Oh,” I say. “And I found out that the Level System got revamped again.”

I explain to him the changes, though omit how I found out, and he listens intently.

“So that’s what it meant by Divine Dungeon?” He asks.

“What what meant?” I ask.

Divine Quest: Waking Dragons I

Wake the dragon sleeping within you and return to your fun moods

Requirement: Reach 200 Mana and cast the Instinct Magic you discover within

Reward: Massive Experience, Instant Access to a Divine Dungeon, Beginner’s [Element Redacted] Tome

Accept: Y/N?

“Element Redacted?” I ask, realizing that Tyr must have given him the Quest at the same time I got it.

“Tyr probably wants me to figure out the element on my own,” Colt shrugs. “That, or pick one.”

“What do you want to do?” I ask.

“Well,” he hesitates. “Back home, there’s a poem about fire and ice, and how both are as destructive as the other. You said you can do ice magics, right?”

“Yeah,” I nod.

“Then I’ll learn fire magics,” he says.

“Then it’s settled!” I hold out my fist. “We’ll increase our magics for two weeks, and figure out what your Instinct Magic is!”

“And you’ll use yours, right?” He asks. “You got one, too, right?”

“Yeah,” I grin at him, feeling my face heat up a little. “You figured that out, didn’t you?”

“Tyr likes competitions,” he nods. “I figured that if he gave me that, he gave you one, too.”

“Mine’s for ice,” I nod. “Probably stated because I know it already.”

“Mine just changed to fire.”

“Cool!” I grin at him. “Let’s pay for two more weeks, then head home!”

“What about your people?”

“They can wait,” I say. “It’s not like they’re completely defenseless – they’re the most powerful ice magicians in the world.”

I’m grateful the god has given me a couple of weeks to prepare, instead of just letting me go up there. I’m actually really, really nervous to return home, after these last few months being gone. I ran away the day before my twelfth birthday, when I would be allowed to learn magic for the first time.

We pay for the rooms, then go out and eat breakfast and return to my room, sitting down cross-legged and beginning to use Mana Shroud, holding it as intense as we can without passing out, until just before we feel ourselves ready to.

Once we recover and eat some more, we repeat. For two weeks, that’s all we do, not sharing with each other our progress.

On the fourteenth day, we’re walking back to the inn from the restaurant we ate dinner at when a bell begins tolling. We stop walking, and look around. Someone starts yelling that demons are attacking.

Warriors begin running out of town, and Colt and I look at each other. He’s still subdued, but he’s been so focused on increasing his magic that he’s begun to stop being bothered by what happened.

“Want to go kill some demons?” I ask, and he nods. I grin at him. “Then let’s go kick demon butt!”

We race to the edge of town, where hundreds of demons are pouring down the mountains.

The warriors are forming a human barrier against the Demons, waiting for them to reach us. I rush between them, ignoring as they yell for me to get back here.

If they make it to town, then with Colt as he is now, they will kill him.

That’s why Tyr told us to wait – so we wouldn’t encounter this horde on our way up, and have the power to take it on when they arrived. I know that Colt’s Mana is far greater than mine, from the way it radiates off of him. He’s probably got twice my Mana, and could use Rising Ice twice, if he had the ability to.

But he doesn’t, and I don’t have his Mana Pool. I can only pray to Tyr and Kirta that I’m powerful enough that a single use wipes out the horde.

“Icy power that sleeps within, waken and shout, call and rise, and heed my call. Chill through the bone, and halt all in time. Rise, O Frozen Heart! Rising Frost!”

Snowflakes appear in the air around me as a frosty mist surrounds me, swirling, rapidly expanding outward and forward, snow rising up from the ground as the demons stop their descent, nearly here. They’re just yards away, now.

The snow freezes in place, the air taking on a beautiful look.

Then…

Everything freezes, starting with the ground and going up. It’s rapid, and happens in the span of less than a second.

Skill Gained!

Rising Ice 1

Divine Quest: Waking Dragons 1 Completed!

Reward: Massive Experience, Divine Dungeon Token, Beginner’s Ice Tome

Divine Dungeon Token added to Inventory

Beginner’s Ice Tome added to Inventory

Level is now 50 – excess Experience deferred until you reach the Second Tier

I only got half the horde…

And the other half is running past the frozen statues of their comrades and trees, shattering the frozen grass and flowers of the ground they’re crossing.

It wasn’t enough, and I’m exhausted. I can’t fight them.

“Blazing power that sleeps within, waken and shout, call and rise, and heed my call. Burn even the bones, and incinerate all that exists. Rise, of Fiery Heart! Rising Flame!”

I stop and turn to face Colt as I realize he’s the one speaking that, his old light – and determination – back in his eyes. Blue eyes filled with the pure willpower to end the horde.

Glowing red specks rise up from the ground as flames begin to swirl around him and heat begins to distort, and I realize that I’m directly in the path of his spell.

I’m about to move away when I hear the screams of the horde, and turn to face them. The spell didn’t blast out of him, but rose up from the ground.

It’s burning the demons that were too far for my attack, as well as melting the ice on the ones I killed, burning them as well. The trees that are caught in his spell thaw and burn, and by the time it ends, there’s naught but ash left behind.

I turned it into a frozen wonderland, and he turned it into a charred field.

(Colt)

“I win,” I stick my tongue out at Tyler once we’re back at the inn, the few demons who survived our attacks slaughtered by the soldiers of the town.

“Glad to have this you back,” Tyler holds out a fist, and I bump it. “Though I guess you beat me on who gets to kill someone first.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I look down. “It just… happened.”

“I know,” I put a hand on his shoulder. “It was bound to happen eventually, though. Think about it – we were getting powerful, and fast. People were bound to come after us eventually, especially with your blatant refusal to bow or respect gods. Someone would try to kill us, and we’d have to kill them in self-defense. Once we got to be adults, we’d probably be asked to deal with criminals from time to time. It just happened sooner.”

“But she-”

“Is in the past,” Tyler shakes his head, then smiles at me. “I’m pretty exhausted from that – once we rest up tonight, want to race up the mountain? Once we’re through the illusion, you’ll be able to sense the path and everything just fine.”

“Race?” I ask, and he nods. “You’re going to lose!”