“So?” Dawn asked, waiting for him to elaborate.

“So?! What do you mean, ‘so?’ You got a death wish or something?”

“You’re coming with us. Besides, how will you get back to Oren? Are you going to walk it?”

He guffawed, “You think walking would bother me?”

“Well, I guess not,” August shrug, “but the fact that I haven’t taught you a single thing about acquiring quintessential energy should bother you.”

Aldrich grew silent and gave in, at a compromise. He insisted he wasn’t going but opted to at least stay in the inn until midday, and if we weren’t back by then, it meant he could assume us dead.

So, we entered the grandest estate we’d ever seen in the middle of a city. But what stole our hearts most, was the aromatic and salivating scent of whatever this breakfast was. Yes, the invitation was a simple meet-and-greet over breakfast thing that Aldrich became scared about. We entered the building, going onto a lift that would seem to be operated with quint. How do they get quint into non-living stuff? Emily didn’t say anything about that, I pondered, then the thought left my head as the tempting smell grew stronger. At a place in the sky where Zephyrs were used to, we looked out the transparent walls and was in awe at the surreal view of Ansul. They were extremely developed and made me just a little nervous meeting with this so called ‘paladin’ of Ansul. Of course, with every passing moment, my finger was on the Timedial trigger. All my Avatar buffs were on, namely Avatar of Lightning for its great reaction times. A surprise attack wouldn’t work on me. Dawn held onto August’s hand, prepared to cast Invisibility on both of them if we were to be greeted by an ambush.

“Ah, I see you have all arrived,” a woman’s voice alerted us. “Impeccable timing. Please,” she opened a door to a small dining area, “come inside, sit with us.”

We all sat down except Donna; she opted to stay inside and seemed to only really join us for partying. The very ambitious young man from yesterday sat between the woman who greeted us and an older fellow. “Firstly, we’d like to thank you for accepting our invitation,” the lady spoke whilst their many servants began bringing platters of food over to our table. They literally had a whole buffet on the other half of the room and man was it hard to pay attention to her whilst they packed the table. “But, perhaps the most important part of this should be acknowledged immediately. Timothy.” She now had a straight face unlike her persistently pleasant smile from before.

Mr Smooth now had a name. He was not very good at hiding his anger from his little vendetta against me. He stood up, went to the side of the table, the one I was on and began kneeling. “Stop. Don’t even think of faking an apology. Dishonestly makes me reel. Stand up reflect on your ideals.” I could feel the aghast and somewhat confused stares of his parents, but after so many meetings with difficult people I’d learned to ignore most reactions to my often bizarre and frank words. “After you’ve thought about it, come back to me. If you wish to apologise then, I will accept it. If you wish to make clear that you cannot forgive my actions, then feel free. Talk to me as an honest man. As for your transgressions, they’re already forgiven.”

My eyes then shifted to his parents, “Mr and Mrs Ansullar, I appreciate your intention here, but please understand that forcing Timothy to…” I then stopped, realising what I was about to say would basically be telling them how to be proper parents, which was way out of line for me. And that’s exactly what I told them when Mrs Ansullar urged me to continue, but to my surprise they actually seemed interested in hearing what I had to say. It was quite strange for people as achieved as they are to want to listen to me about such things, which made me wonder if her curiosity was actually candid. “Uh, well, I was going to say that forcing him to apologise would only worsen his feelings towards me and impede his judgment of you. He’s already old enough to know right from wrong, so simply advising him and teaching him how to put things in proper, objective perspective so that he might make his own educated decision is the best course of action.”

Dawn and August simply looked at me weirdly, as did Timothy’s parents. His father fidgeted a little, then released an audible sigh. We introduced ourselves afterward and the minute a silent moment butted its head in the atmosphere, the man used it as an opportunity to ask me a question. “You seem to be very forthright and straightforward in your ways of speaking Mr Archi… Eric,” he corrected himself after I once told him to simply use first names. “Then, please allow to do the same. I want to know two things. When Timothy approached Dawn, you were angered, yes?”

“Very. I knew better than to let my emotions control me, of course.” My face contorted in a bit of shame, “But seeing it go down in front of me, I’m afraid I couldn’t help myself.”

“That’s understandable, we’re not perfect after all.” Edgar placed his elbow on the table, joined his hands together and looked me right in the eyes, his whole aura changing to something rather serious. “Eric, at that moment, would you have been able to kill my son?”

“Edgar!” his wife called his name in disbelief, but he raised his hand. I could tell he wasn’t a controlling person in any way, so for him to do that meant he absolutely had to know the answer to that question, which made that answer even harder for me to find. I took a few seconds well to formulate it in my mind, then decided the best thing to do would be to narrow his question down and avoid any misunderstandings in this already tense atmosphere.

“When you say ‘would’, do you mean my resolve to take a life? Or do you mean whether or not I’m literally capable of doing it?”

“Well, now that you put it that way, both.” He said, wanting more answers.

Donna? Help!

“Tell the truth buddy. The truth shall set you free!”

What drugs are you taking in there? I asked but then quickly returned to the matter at hand. Their very culture, it would seem by the signs of how freely even the most normal citizen carried around weapons of some sort or wore certain armour, that a big part of their dogmas was competitive. They, like the Virai did, valued strength. On this notion, and especially thinking about what I said earlier on honesty, I had to tell the truth.

“Yes, I do have the resolve to take lives. As for whether or not I’m capable of actually killing your son, well…”

“Well?”

“That’s not exactly a difficult thing to do.”

Edgar’s muscle contracted a bit. He seemed very protective of Timothy but also quite strict. “Explain the fight to me again, please.”

It was becoming clearer and clearer why they set this up. It was to flush out the flaws in Timothy’s personality, flaws that could affect his fighting, or ultimately lead to his demise. So, I went on to describe what happened. “So, you see, he was dead the minute he drew his sword,” I concluded. Although the young man was quite fast in placing the sword at my neck, my Avatar buffs were already on when I first flared my magic. Avatar of Water would render his physical attacks useless. Magnet would do the same. Voidwalk would literally make him unable to even see, hear, or sense me. Avatar of Lightning and Timedial would make it easy to react in time. Avatar of Earth made me twenty-five percent more resilient. Those were just the defensive spells I had.

After our long discussion, Edgar’s attention finally turned to August, whom nearly every living person in Hyzek could sense an overwhelming amount of quintessence from. Through their conversation, we learned some interesting things. The quintessence in Hyzek was limited, because literally everyone used it, the speed at which it reproduces can’t keep up. This was why they began storing it within constructs. They basically have an entire economy based on taking and giving energy. That’s why most young people simply worked and their employers would give them quintessence so that they might have a large amount stored up to practise with at once. The more they practised, the more they could use at any one time, just like August. However, the thing that made our friendly blacksmith different, was that when he used his, he took quintessential energy from Methelia, not Hyzek. In other words, even here, his supply was unlimited. Of course, he didn’t tell them that, but it wouldn’t be hard to deduce because it was obvious that we weren’t from Hyzek at all. And they weren’t as ignorant as people from our world; their standard of education was higher than Methelia’s.

Elder was certainly on to something, maybe he’d even been to Hyzek and saw a land of opportunity.

“Hey, do you guys have one of those orbs that can store quint?” August asked, thinking to get one.

“Well, y-yes, but…” Chelleze, Timothy’s mom, stuttered, “they’re quite, hard to come by. Only the Architects, a neutral guild in another city has the ability to make them.”

August and I immediately looked at each other and shared a hearty laugh. I transmuted a grape on the side to a ring and gave it to August. The signature heat-wave-looking effect of enchanting began taking form immediately. “Well,” he said after a minute, “pretty easy to do,” he commented, then placed the ring on. The ring had that high-pitched sound he first got when he used a payment sphere for the first time.

“It can’t be…” Chelleze said. Edgar’s jaw stopped chewing and he looked on with full attention. Even Timothy whom was somewhat distanced from our conversation gazed at the cream ring.

“Mind trying it?” August gave it to her, then had second thoughts. “Wait!” he grabbed her wrist, “Is that okay? Can you take all that quint at once? I put a lot there.”

“One way to find out,” Chelleze smirked and placed the ring on and all the quint suddenly rushed into her. She paused, then suddenly coughed blood right out her mouth. I immediately Voidwalked over to her, going right through the table, then placed my hand directly on her and cast Renew.

“W-what was that?”

Just as I was about to answer, she began convulsing with tremendous amounts of pain, at least that’s what I thought by the volume of her shriek. “Hold her down!” I asked, her spasms made it difficult to really tend to her, so her son and husband kept her as still as they could.

I cast Clone, then we both double-cast Purist and repeatedly used Renew on Chelleze. After half a minute, she began calming down as the quintessence properly settled within her.

“Holy shit, I’m not doing that again!” August exclaimed, shaking in his boots.

“No! You have to!” Chelleze argued back at him, even in her state. “This, this is too big of an opportunity to,” she breathed heavily, “let go.”

“How about you take an opportunity to rest first?” August sighed.

Eventually, we took our leave. Later that day, around noon when the sun showed no mercy, a woman found us roaming the streets. She, like many others, wore plated armour and carried a sword and shield, a rather long shield. If she knelt on one knee it’d completely protect her from any threat in front of her. We were out shopping when she stopped August. “Sir August King?”

“Yes?”

“Pleasant afternoon. I am here to extend an invitation from the young master, Timothy Ansullar to a grand banquet that – should you accept – will be held in celebration and thanks of your gift to the Ansullar matriarch.”

“Ah, right, right,” he simply brushed the invitation aside, not actually confirming whether or not he was okay with it. “Say, are you free tonight, uh…”

“Melissa Ainsworth, sir,” she said, her eyes a little suspect of what August wanted. Even I questioned it a little, but I knew that guy and there was no way he’d be able to get over Shyla so quickly.

“Come drink with us tonight,” August had a broad smile on his face, “then I’ll accept Timmy’s invitation.”

Her face faintly contorted. It was obvious she misunderstood his intentions – whatever they might’ve been – but she still agreed to meet with us regardless. It appeared the Ansullars were either feared or respected, and I doubted it was the latter.

That night, we partied again. Melissa came along, in a rather provocative dress that she was quite uncomfortable in. A few drinks in, and she called it quits with Dawn. “You bunch o’ wusses!” I teased them whilst Aug, Donna, me, and somehow Aldrich continued drowning ourselves in a heavier-than-usual buzz.

That’s how most of our nights went, with a couple of us taking turns to not be the super intoxicated ones. The bad morning-after hangovers were aided with Renew – thank Hydra’s ass for that spell – so that our days would still be rather productive. August would give Aldrich fair amounts of quint, increasing the dosage each time and they’d both train together. He’d also focus on his pillar of creation, enchanting, as would I mine, transmutation.

Every now and then, he’d also ask things of Melissa. This was how we came to know of the ranks of prestige in Hyzek society, at least pertaining to their quint fighters. Crusader was a warrior which has crossed thirty percent quint usage. Melissa was a crusader that worked under the Ansullar family. The stronger rank which needed fifty percent quint usage was knight, which Timothy was. The other two ranks were knight-paladin and paladin, which both needed eighty percent quint usage to pull off, but the latter would be the strongest of that demographic. We also learned that there was a higher rank, but Melissa brushed it off as old legend. Funny how mages were a legend to them as well, yet here we were.

After about a week of continued training and drinking, Melissa was suddenly summoned to the outskirts of the city. The pale-skinned, black-haired girl seemed to grow even paler when she got the summons. She said her goodbye in the sense that she might never see us again or return to Ansul at all. With a slight bow, she thanked us for the past few days and ambled off.

“Buddy,” I ruffled his already frizzy hair, “if you wanna meddle, I got ya back.”

“You saw that look in her eyes? Something’s up. I noticed a lot of other people we’d usually see around these parts left, at least the holy warriors. Melissa always avoided talking about the edge of Hyzek too.”

“What? What’re you getting at?”

“There’s something out there that they all fear. No one talks about it.” He looked to be seriously wondering what was going on. She only just seemed to be truly loosening up around us as well, so I thought it was a shame.

~

“…No! How can we just let you go there?!” Chelleze argued, “You want the truth? We want to keep you here just because it would benefit us. It would benefit all of Hyzek! We cannot allow such valuable pieces to be at such risk! The mortality rate in Umbral is…” she slowed down when her husband cleared his throat.

First thing the next morning, we had visited the Ansullars to ask that they cancel Melissa’s deployment to Umbral, a land of shadow beasts that they’ve been fighting against for centuries. It was either that or send us to the same squadron they placed her in, which Chelleze promptly refused to do.

“So, she has to risk her life while your son gets to watch from afar?” August accused without care for Timothy’s presence. “If the mortality rates are high, then why send low-ranks? Why don’t you send more knight-paladins? In the first place,” his anger flared a little, “what makes you think I’d be your damn battery?”

“Staying alive and helping the wider Hyzek will reduce the number of deaths in Umbral that you’re so worried about,” Edgar pointed out, understanding August’s viewpoint. “This ‘high mortality rate’ was a term that was thrown around when we knew little of Umbral. We were unprepared and inexperienced, not properly grouped and more or less scouting to learn their lands. The deaths are reduced now.” A valid argument, but August didn’t care about the lives of random people as much as he did for someone he actually knew. And if he could do something for someone he knew, then he would. That’s the kind of guy he was. To him, caring about everyone was a stupid thing to do, an impossible thing.

“Ugh, this is pointless,” August stood up and left. Dawn and I followed closely behind the irritated smithy, but then I stopped and asked that the two of them leave without me.

“Dear Ansullars, if it may be alright, might I request some more time with you to get some more information on Umbral? You see,” I pointed back with my thumb, “my buddy there will go no matter what we tell him and I’d rather we were prepared.”

“To ensure his safety, we’d have sent knight-paladins with him anyway, but I appreciate your initiative.”

When he said those words, I knew exactly what he was thinking, what any proper leader at least should be thinking. We can be used to help Hyzek against the beasts in Umbral. Well, I couldn’t blame him, for I expected that would have had to happen. We couldn’t simply just take Melissa out without first accomplishing the task she was sent to do, and as long as we were helping then we might as well be efficient about it.

“So,” I borrowed an empty journal from them and did one of the first things I’d learn as a mage, writing with mana, “first question…”