I agree with Voice Stratus. Our focus should be on containing the chaos these new additions to our world forewarn. They bring new knowledge. New forms of power. Even worse than these new fronts, I fear they might energize winds long dormant. The Storm has long had enemies who would see any change in the supporting currents as an opportunity. We must keep our ears and eyes open, lest we miss a vital shift in the currents. I believe myself to be most fitting in this task. With the agreement of the other voices, and the permission of The Herald, I would leave to pursue the whispers I hear on every breeze. - Letter from the Voice Cirrostratus

“Come on Li, you call that a knife throw! I feel sorry for your weapons. I bet you couldn’t hit anything without your magic! And we spent all that time drilling in proper throwing form too!” The voice came from all around him, echoing from one shadow after another. It was relentless in its mocking too, never missing a chance to let Li know how outmatched he was.

His opponent was capable of some form of limited teleportation, jumping into a shadow at one spot and appearing out of a different one. They could also remain hidden in the shadows, untouchable to Li, for at least some amount of time. They had to pop out occasionally though, and that was when Li could strike.

The problem was figuring out what shadow his opposition would appear from. He only had a split second to react when he felt the magic activate with his Mana Sense, just enough of a window to throw. If his opponent wasn’t in his field of view, that meant he missed his chance as he would not have enough time to reorient as well. The owner of the voice had made a mistake though, slowly showing a pattern as the two had continued to fight. Li probably never would have noticed, if not for the unending insults.

It seemed like his enemy needed to pop out of the shadows to some lesser degree to speak, and had incorporated those manifestations into their wider pattern. With how much they talked, it allowed him to experience the pattern far more frequently than he normally would have. By now, he had a fairly good idea of which shadow would be next.

They’ll talk from that shadow to the right next. The one made by Ananya’s tent. After that will be the shadow of the wall behind me and to my left. Then the one from Kai’s sword. He’d figured the rotation out almost two cycles ago, but had been doing his best to hide that he had figured it out. If he could keep his enemy from realizing he had figured it out, it would be his turn to make a surprise attack.

“What’s the matter Li? Getting tired? Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get a nice nap!”

The voice had followed the pattern perfectly. Li was sure of it now; he knew what order his opposition used the shadows in. Maybe there was some kind of cooldown for each shadow before they could hop back to it? Why doesn’t matter. Only matters that this is something I can exploit.

“Well, if you aren’t going to attack, then I suppose I will!”

A humanoid form appeared out of the corner of his eye, the one he’d been keeping an eye on since it had been coming up in the pattern. He’d been purposefully leaving it toward his blind spot, never looking directly at it like he did so many of the others. Hoping he could convince his enemy that he had forgotten about it. Apparently, that had paid off, and he quickly threw one of his knifes at the figure.

The figure leaped backwards, resolving into the smiling form of Djimon. “Finally figured the pattern out huh? Too bad that isn’t enough!”

Between his fingers the man twirled the knife Li had just thrown at him. If he’d been able to use all his spells, maybe he could have hit Djimon with it. He wasn’t allowed to use most of them though. The purpose of this fight was to train his senses, which meant he could only use Perfect Force Understanding, Motion Sense, and Mana Sense. That left his attacks themselves severely lacking.

“Go ahead and have this back Li, it isn’t helping you much anyway!”

Djimon threw the knife right at Li before rolling forward and seemingly dropping through the shadow he had emerged from. Li himself had to quickly dive out of the way as the knife flew his direction. The thing was a gift from Norah, something she had called a “training dagger”. Getting hit by it wouldn’t do any lasting harm, but it wouldn’t be any fun either.

No time to think about that. Scrambling forward he scooped up the knife just in time, grabbing it seconds before an arm shot out of his own shadow and attempted to take it. He leapt to his feet, watching the arm return to the shadow, and began searching for signs of Djimon. He wouldn’t use the same pattern now, might not even use a pattern at all. He was starting from the beginning all over and that meant he was probably about to lose.

The start was always the most dangerous part. There was simply no telling what approach Djimon would take in the coming minutes, but it would be meant to take him entirely off guard. Despite all his efforts, it usually came down to luck when determining if he “survived” long enough to find Djimon’s tells in any given spar.

#

Minutes later, he couldn’t help but curse himself for having said that. He didn’t really believe in luck, but thinking that definitely hadn’t helped. Not twenty seconds later, Djimon had managed to rip the knife from his hand and stab it into his kidney.

The damn training dagger had been brutal in delivering the lesson for failure. The thing was enchanted so that the blade would become mostly intangible when brought into contact with the body. It resulted in what Nora called “selective micro-trauma” that mostly just set off all the nerves on the way in. On top of that, a secondary enchantment granted the blade a portion of Nora’s healing magic, and would instantly undo even that minor damage when removed from the target’s body. It took a few hours for the thing to recharge after that, but the result was a training weapon that delivered all the pain without any of the danger.

Even now he still felt the burning sensation of the thing entering his side and digging into his vital organs. Apparently that first day had not been a fluke or one-off test. Norah was a firm believer that the number one teacher in life was pain. That “nothing could motivate someone to not make the same mistake quite like a bruise or other injury”. It was an antiquated method, for sure, and not something he would ever condone in some type of mandatory lesson. He had signed up for this though. He could ask them to stop or leave the party at any time, and they would gladly accommodate him.

“What are you thinking about Li?”

Norah had made her way over while he had found himself caught in his own musings. Now she was standing over him, blotting out the sun as he lay on the cool ground and rubbed his side. She reached down with one large hand and he accepted her help pulling him up.

“Just doesn’t feel like I am making any progress. We’ve been at this for what? Four days now? And I’m still struggling to consistently last even a minute against Djimon.”

Norah’s face split into the downright monstrous grin that he was very slowly getting used to before she began chuckling, “Of course you are still struggling! Djimon is E Rank and you are F+ at best. Besides, we’ve been telling him to keep you pressured. What’s the point of training that doesn’t?”

She brought a large hand down on his back, lightly jostling him in what he assumed was meant to be a comforting pat. “You’ve definitely been improving though. The entire point of this exercise is to force you to focus on more and more at once. Too many people with good perception powers get caught up in looking closely at one thing instead of allowing their powers to keep track of as much as possible. You probably haven’t noticed, but Djimon has been upping the number of shadows he uses every time. Even artificially creating them as necessary. Why else do you think Kai would just leave his sword sticking in the ground like that?

“He’s also been increasing the complexity of the patterns he uses. We’ve noticed you have proven pretty good at recognizing them, so he’s been forced to work a little harder than he expected. That’s a good skill to have Li. Doesn’t matter how powerful you get, almost everyone uses patterns and forms to one degree or another. Being able to recognize and anticipate them is a powerful tool.”

Li brightened a little at this praise. It was good to know that he was improving, he just wished it could be a little more noticeable.

“If pattern recognition is so useful, why aren’t you keeping the difficulty a little lower? Or at least have Djimon give me more of a chance to recognize the pattern at the beginning?”

The faint approval he felt from her expression let Li know he had asked the right question, “Because, training your pattern recognition is just a happy bonus. It isn’t the main goal of this training. If anything, we would be removing the pattern. The problem with people like you, who have strong perceptive powers, is that you all fall into the trap of becoming reactionary. I bet every fight you are running around, waiting for the opponent to do something that gives you an opportunity. Relying on your senses to tell you when something the opponent does creates a chance.”

Thinking back, Li couldn’t entirely disagree with her. He had always preferred to let his opponents take the lead and wait for a chance to counter. There were only a handful of times when he himself had started an exchange. He thought he knew where this was going, but he nodded his head for her to continue.

“And now it dawns on you. The problem is that you have given your opponents almost complete control of the momentum. Even when we sparred, and I specifically forced you to attack me, you preferred to look for openings in my stance rather than try to force one yourself. And you were clearly uncomfortable the entire time. Even after I put you on your ass that first round, you still hesitated every time you had to start the fight. You are so focused on what’s already there, that you aren’t thinking about what opportunities you could create.

“So, we’re taking that choice away from you. If your opponent only shows up for a split second, it’s up to you to attack. Immediately. You don’t have enough time to sit and look for openings. If you just wait to see what he does you are going to keep having a hard time getting through the early minutes of the fight. So don’t, focus on doing something yourself to make the situation more advantageous.”

When she left Li, Djimon followed her. He paused just long enough to call over his shoulder, “Don’t take what she says too hard man. Being reactionary isn’t all bad. As much as this form of fighting forces you to eventually take the initiative so that I can’t just keep peppering you from blind spots, it also is a form of reactionary training. I mean, you are reacting to my appearance. That said, Norah has always had a far greater preference for head on solutions. You have to find your balance, reacting without simply giving your opponent control of the fights pace. Think about it.”

The conversation left Li deep in thought, wondering what he could have been doing differently this entire time. He slowly realized that they were right. Djimon started every spar without the knife. He had to take it from Li to win. He had always been so focused on keeping ahold of the knife and looking for the patterns that he had never bothered to try to turn on Djimon during those desperate, early seconds. He had been so focused on trying to find patterns he could exploit, that he hadn’t bothered to simply start the fight when Djimon made a lunge for the weapon.

Of course, that probably wasn’t the only option. He wondered if he might have been making a few wrong assumptions about these spars. When they had first started, he had simply been told to go stand in the middle of the shadows and try to hit Djimon with the dagger while limiting his power set. He had assumed that meant he had to stay in the very middle of the shadows and that he wasn’t allowed to interfere with them. Maybe that wasn’t the case.

If he could move, could he dictate the pattern by changing which shadows Djimon could realistically use to go after him? Could he prevent the man from using inconvenient shadows? He still doubted he was allowed to entirely eliminate the shadows since it sounded like having a large number of locations to observe was part of the training, but could he find a way to disturb a shadow with enough light or danger that Djimon couldn’t use it?

Almost thirty minutes later, Emiko found Li writing out potential plans in the dirt with a stick. Li himself never even noticed her arrival. Or when she left five minutes later, grinning at his antics.

#

As had been becoming his routine, Li found himself up at first light doing something not entirely unlike morning yoga. If morning yoga included knives. He and Kai were facing each other, Li mirroring his every action as Kai slowly moved himself from position to position. He knew from experience that over time, Kai would begin to speed up the motions until the two were moving through them at an absolute flurry. For now, though, it was incredibly relaxing.

“Tell me about yourself Li.”

The man’s words took Li entirely off guard. The last few mornings this routine had been performed in complete silence, simply enjoying the sounds of nature. The change in routine meant he took a few seconds to answer as his mind seemed to stutter over the change.

“That’s a big question Kai. Anything in particular you want to know?”

“Start simply. What are your parents like?”

As he talked, Kai raised his hands from his hip. The knives were held in a reverse grip, blades almost like extensions of his knuckles and thumbs on the pommel. Slowly his left arm raised almost parallel to his body, as if blocking a blow, before the right hand rose in something almost like an uppercut. The edge of the knife sliced through where the imaginary limb being blocked would be at a glacial pace.

“Not a whole lot to say. My dad was a pharmacist. Helped prepare medicine for people. My mom…helped maintain diagnostic equipment at a local lab. I’m not sure if Electrical Engineers are a thing here.”

As Li spoke, he followed Kai through the next motion, bringing the blocking arm in and the right hand down. The two swept the attacking hand through a low hook, drawing the imaginary attacker out of position and rolling the blade around as it went to deliver another cut.

“I have not heard of such a thing. Are they anything like artificers? Enchanters specializing in complex, minor enchantments meant to interact as a greater whole?”

The defending arm was slowly pushed out, breaking away from the engagement and ending this particular routine.

“That’s a pretty accurate description. Nice people, wonderful really. Couldn’t have asked for better parents. With such busy jobs it probably would have been pretty easy to ignore me growing up, but they were always around to help me with school or sports or random projects in the shed. My mom and I even built a working RC Car once. Kind of a tiny, remotely controlled golem.”

Li and Kai began repeating the earlier set, this time using the opposite hands. They spent a little while in silence, Li wondering what his parents were doing right now. They’d think he was dead. Not that they hadn’t been ready for that for months, but still. He hoped they were ok.

Sensing the mood worsening, Kai spoke up. “My own parents never had much time for anything outside of adventuring. They loved taking me on monster hunting trips. My very first one, they brought me out to the forest to kill slimes. Apparently, the creatures had recently gone through mitosis and their acid was highly diluted from all the additional water taken in during the process.

“When I found one, it was tiny. Not even the size of my fist. My parents wanted me to kill it and move on, but I wanted to keep the thing as a pet! In the end they relented. Slimes don’t live very long, three or four months at best. And they only split if they are fed enough magic. By strictly controlling its diet, my ‘pet’ was basically a living water droplet.”

Pausing to complete the rotation, Kai looked up and smiled toward Li. He pulled up the canteen hanging from his side and took a large gulp of water while motioning for Li to take a quick water break himself. When the two were done, Kai began moving into position to repeat the last two sequences once again.

“My family still reminds me of that story in letters and messages, never letting me forget that I am the first person in my family’s long history to adopt a monster. I fully expect them to still be laughing about it while on their deathbeds. They even have an illusory portrait of me running around with it riding in my hair. Never miss a chance to show it to visitors.”

Li laughed a little at the story. It appeared parents were the same everywhere, never missing an opportunity to embarrass their kids, “I hope I can see it someday.”

#

An uncomfortable silence pressed down on them as Li and Ananya walked down the maze corridor. Norah had asked Ananya to take him out on a monster hunt while they set up camp, and she had reluctantly agreed. Ostensibly, this decision had been made to give Li practice using his perception powers while tracking a target. He had a feeling, however, that it was meant to force the two to spend some time together.

Ananya had been frigid since the group brought him in. Not hostile, just watchful and unwilling to assist. Not that he could entirely blame her, as he was basically a stranger whose story didn’t entirely make sense. Still, he hoped she would stop glaring at him so much, it made him nervous. Something which she seemed to take as vindication for her watchfulness.

“So did Norah say what we’re actually looking for?” Li had never been particularly good at small talk, and his question came out a little forced.

Ananya, clearly having preferred the silence, stared at him for a moment before answering. “No, she simply stated that a monster would be roaming this area. That it is your job to track it down and defeat it. I am just here to keep you from getting yourself killed in the process.”

“Great…great.”

It was another four or five minutes before Li worked up the courage to ask the prickly woman another question.

“So, uh, what’s it like being the party’s tank?”

“What kind of question is that? Do you mean what do I enjoy about it? Or why I chose this role? It was not something I ever particularly wanted to do. Nobody dreams of spending every day getting hit, but it was where my talents lay. It is a heavy responsibility, but rewarding in ways I could not have imagined when I was younger. My job is to protect Wandering Horizons, and I would do anything to ensure they are safe. They are a second family to me.”

Li looked at her for a little while after that, trying to figure out what to say next. Her pride in her work was obvious, and he could see why. It was hard to find a job that so directly benefited people.

“I have to say I’m jealous of you Ananya. I’m sure it is hard having people you care about rely so heavily on you, but it shows how much they trust you. And how capable you are. I’ve only ever been able to be the one relying on others. The other way around might be nice for once.

He may have imagined it, but he felt like the silence after that was a little more comfortable.

#

“No, not like that! You can’t just glance at it and expect to actually know everything!”

The shout was shortly followed by a small burst of sparks and the smell of ozone and the glowing ring Li was tampering with flashed brightly. He cursed as a number of the sparks electrocuted him and left his fingers buzzing like tv static. Emiko had been teaching Li more about disarming enchantments. Djimon had been helping out as well, but he had quickly admitted that Emiko’s magic senses were both better than his own and more similar to what Li had.

Djimon’s particular ability, called Trap Sense, focused more heavily on detecting the effects of traps, along with where their triggers were located. It also worked equally well with mechanical and magical traps. It even helped identify stuff as simple as pits meant to ruin his footing. The downside was that it gave a lot less information about the specific mechanisms of the traps when compared to Li’s senses.

Emiko, in comparison, had shared Li’s Mana Sense ability. Surprisingly, that did not mean their powers worked exactly the same. Apparently sensory abilities came in multiple flavors and often were influenced by the users existing senses. While Li’s Mana Sense seemed almost like hearing for the most part, Emiko’s was far more visual in nature. When Li looked at magic, all he really saw was a glow that showed how much magic was there and where it was.

In comparison, Emiko could see how long the magic had been there, how much it had weakened over time, a general impression of how powerful the creator had been, broken areas where the magic should have flown to, and more. Part of that was the fact her Mana Sense was far more well trained than his own, but it also came down to the fact that visual versions of sensory abilities tended to give a lot more information. The downside was that, unlike Li’s auditory-esque version, she had a much harder time sensing mana in areas she wasn’t looking.

Because Li was mostly interested in using Mana Sense defensively, he was more than happy with the tradeoff. Especially when Emiko offered to help him overcome what he considered the biggest downside, knowing what the mana was doing. She had been gradually drilling him with common enchantment sigils and what they did. It required a lot more concentration, and he certainly couldn’t do it on the fly, but it meant that if he needed to he could at least attempt to disarm a trap.

“What’s the first thing I said to you Li? Don’t fuck with things you don’t understand. And glancing at a magic formation to pick out the most obvious rune is not understanding something! If you had spent more than thirty seconds looking at what I gave you, you would have noticed the storm rune connected to the repulsion sigil. You thought you were dealing with a simple push trap, so releasing the force makes sense. If that force is meant to propel an element though, all you’ve done is make an explosion.”

“Not that that is necessary a bad thing,” Djimon cut her off.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean Djimon! Of course it’s a bad thing!” As usual, Emiko did not enjoy Djimon’s more…applied approach.

“Well, it is disarmed now. The bigger problems are that he didn’t mean to make it explode and that he didn’t avoid the explosion when it happened.”

All that Djimon received in response to that was a loud sigh before Emiko returned her attention to Li. “As I was saying, some idiot rogue might think an explosion that disrupts the enchantment is good enough. But doing that is inelegant and inefficient. Not to mention dangerous.”

She handed Li a few sheets of loose paper with various sigils drawn into them, “These are ways to safely drain the magic from enchantments like this so that you can disable the trap.”

Glancing over her shoulder at Emiko’s notes, Djimon stage whispered to Li, “And by safe she means slowly. That’s fine, but don’t shy away from quick and dirty!”

Li couldn’t help but smile at the comfortably antagonistic relationship the two shared as Emiko continued to tell Djimon off. It really was like a pair of close siblings, with the constant arguing and small jibes. Li himself had been an only child, but it was something he had seen in a number of his friends as he had grown up. He took the chance to just enjoy the moment, happy with where his new life had taken him.

#

When Li had first heard Norah would be teaching him, he had assumed their lessons would be much like the first day. Him attacking her and her beating the crap out of him. It had been a present surprise, then, when he learned she would not be teaching him direct combat. When he had eventually asked, she’d just said something about Djimon and Kai being better at “that wimpy dancing stuff” and that she preferred “to just hit them hard”.

Instead, Norah had been designated as his magic teacher. Something he had been very confused by at first considering she was a healer. As it had turned out, however, Norah was also the parties primary support and obstructionist. She had two elements, knowing how to cast both Life and Plant magic, and the second was heavily relied on by the team to trip, bind, and overall annoy opponents.

Norah’s preferred approach to using plant magic was to summon a large number of vines and roots from the ground. She would then use them for anything from spearing thrusts to tripwires. It was an approach that required the ability to quickly and effectively split her focus, along with refined mana control and powerful senses. Exactly the sort of approach Li could benefit from with his shields and knives.

“Remember Li, you need to limit your focus for now. Don’t overreach when choosing how much to keep in the air. I can only manage as many vines as I can thanks to a Mental Enhancement, I was lucky to receive from the shop. Eventually, we’ll attempt to get the same ability for you. It will be a lot more effective, though, if you master controlling many different processes at once now.”

The training was simple, but that didn’t mean it was easy. Li was expected to balance as many things in the air as he could manage with his Force Manipulation. As he did, Norah would call out the names of various object he kept floating around him. He would be expected to drop that item and replace with something Norah threw at him.

The first day had definitely been the worst, and while he couldn’t say he had mastered the exercise by any stretch of the imagination he had made a lot of progress. He hadn’t accidentally dropped everything in his cloud at once yet this session at least. He’d also increased his count of flying objects from the initial three to seven. If he only needed to keep it up for a little while, he could manage nine. Norah would quickly punish him for an overreach like that though.

“You’re doing great Li! Much better than I did at this stage in my training.” Norah was generous in her praise, but unyielding in her demands as well. If she believed he was capable of something, she would not yield an inch until he managed it.

“I assume you were much younger when somebody had you attempting it?”

She had told him a few stories before. Apparently her people, the Cetros, were a mostly aquatic people who lived in dangerous ocean waters around the world. They were well known for their intense training that was begun at a young age, training that more than a few groups considered borderline barbaric.

“True. I was only eight and lacked the patience for such things. It took me months to make the same improvement you had. Of course, half of that was just learning to sit still!” She laughed at that, amused by her younger self’s shenanigans.

“Hah, I can’t imagine! The hardest thing I had to learn at that age was division.”

Norah seemed surprised when he said that, giving him a strange look. “Were you meant to be some kind of scholar or merchant Li? I suppose that makes sense with what you said of your parents. There are few educations that require learning such math so early. Even adventurers, who are generally well educated, don’t often learn division until several years later.”

“No, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life yet at that age. At least not really. My parents never pressured me to follow in their footsteps either. I suppose the Cetros don’t have standardized education?”

“No, and I have only rarely heard of such a thing. I suppose you must come from a truly rich area. It would make sense with what you have told us. My people have never had the freedom for such luxuries. The majority of our population must quickly learn combat to protect the pod. Besides that, math is significantly less useful in our society. We do not use currency internally, as each pod is essentially an extended family. Only our traders have to deal with barter and trade, and are the ones we take the time to educate on such things.”

Li was quiet for a while, trying to imagine growing up in such a society. It was just so utterly at odds with his own experience. But is it really that strange? Even Earth didn’t have easily accessible education for children in a lot of countries. Learning only really becomes a priority when a group is secure enough to look beyond core needs.

“Is it really so dangerous where your people are from Norah? You make it sound like they are under constant threat.”

She frowned a little at that, “It is…a balancing act. Deaths are no more common amongst my people than most nations here on the land. The difference is that my people require a large military force to achieve such safety. Most creatures in the ocean would hesitate to attack a company of Cetros soldiers. They would, however, gladly attack any of my people swimming alone. The beasts are smart enough to recognize the power of numbers and respect it, but too dumb to recognize a single individual might be every bit as powerful as the group. It is a world where the appearance of strength is every bit as important as actual strength.”

Once again, it was something that Li had a hard time wrapping his head around. On Earth, the only real threat to humanity had been other humans. It had been that way for centuries. Here, a single powerful monster could mean the annihilation of multiple towns and villages. Even cities if they were dangerous enough.

#

A week after Li was picked up by Wandering Horizons, they threw him a party. Apparently, they had been waiting to see how he responded to the training before really welcoming him. His actions on the first day had impressed them, and been a good sign, but they wanted to make sure it wasn’t a façade before going the through with congratulations.

“You’ve been making me proud Li! I knew you would do a good job, but you’ve gone above and beyond my expectations. With how well this is turning out, maybe next time Kai won’t complain when I say I have a feeling about something.”

Norah had gotten out a bottle of something called Gross, which Emiko had loudly proclaimed stood for gross. The stuff was apparently a Cetros alcohol made using algae, and was very high proof. Something that was necessary when considering the sheer size of many of their people. It had taken less than an hour for Norah to get buzzed, something made abundantly clear by the deep flush in her cheeks and the fact she had become very insistent on hugging, patting, or squeezing the shoulder of everyone else.

“No chance Norah, just because it worked out this time does not mean that next time won’t be a repeat of Floret.”

Kai had taken it upon himself to be on watch for the evening, insisting everyone else get to enjoy themselves. He had handed out vials of something called Purge Potion, which was supposed to quickly (if uncomfortably) return the drinker to sobriety. Then he had told them to have fun before setting up on a stool at the edge of Emiko’s wards, watching for monsters. He still participated in conversations on occasion, but he was obviously taking the work seriously. Li got the impression Kai had been so loud and insistent about the entire thing because if he hadn’t been Ananya would have forcibly taken his place.

Seeing a chance as Norah pulled Emiko to the side to talk about something or other, Djimon slipped in beside Li and passed him a leather satchel, “You’ve been putting in a lot of work, and I thought you deserved these. They’re second hand, but they worked great for me for years.”

Li opened the pouch and found a strange collection of wands, pliers, picks, and other tools. All of them were worn and had obvious signs of use, but were also exceptionally well cared for. More than a few her recognized from his lessons with Ananya, while others he had seen on earth.

Djimon spoke up as he saw the recognition on Li’s face, “It’s a set of trap disarming tools, though they also work well for other things. Like I said, they’re my old pair. I hope they serve you as well as they did me.”

Throughout the rest of the evening, each of the others members of the party took the time to give Li something or another to congratulate him on his first week as “a real adventurer.” Norah gave him a bandolier, along with a number of basic potions. Emiko gave him a thick tome called “Caulfield’s Abridged Guide to Adventuring.” The thing was supposed to have good information on the most common varieties of traps, monsters, notable plants, and magics an adventurer was likely to run in to. Kai had given him a set of daggers of various sizes and types to compliment his throwing daggers. Even Ananya had gotten him something, A paired set of pins that were meant to allow their wearers to more easily track each other, as long as they weren’t too far away.

The entire party beat a number of birthdays Li remembered from Earth.