When Selica and Deringer returned back to the cave, Shellon and Revo’s group were already gone. ”They said the go signal was already fired, so it was time to go.” Ashlin explains as she keeps herself warm and dry by the fire.

Deringer didn’t answer verbally but only smirks. “Stupid kids.” He place himself by the fire beside Ashlin, “mind if I sit beside you, miss.” ”Hey old man you better not mess with the kid, alright?” The stout Cartrid immediately comments the moment Deringer sat right beside Ashlin. Him, Buck and Gregor had been making some significant progress in the cave digging, but due to them only being able to manually dig with their hands, Gregor has been the only one doing the heavy lifting. ”I’m tried and I’m cold, idiot! Shut up and keep digging!” The old man grumbles as he sits meekly by the fire. While all of this is happening, Selica’s mind is still replaying what just happened in her mind. To see mere “Magic Missiles'' do something as ridiculous as what she just saw goes against anything she has ever read about magic.

“Hey, Sel.” Selica hears a voice and refocuses back to see Ashlin shaking her up. She realizes she’s been standing motionless for about a minute. “You good?” ”Oh yes!” Selica quickly responds. “It’s just Deringer’s-!”

“I FUCKING KNEW IT OLD MAN.” Despi immediately shouts and aims her gun at Deringer. “The fuck did you do this time? Did you scare her with your shit again?”

“No no no! I mean his magic-!” Selica’s tries to stop Despi from shooting, but then she realizes the soldier is also holding a pistol. Not exactly the same type of pistol, but vaguely similar in function as Deringer’s. “Actually, how exactly does your magic work? You’re using magic missiles for ammunition, right?”

“Oh, that.” Despi recalls her pistol and leans back by the cave’s entrance barrier. “Yeah, it’s kinda hard to explain. Ask the old man about it.” Selica can see the woman flush a bit of red from embarrassment.

“Magic Missile.” Deringer summoned a small purple diamond-shaped thing in his fingertips. It’s the familiar image of a “Magic Missile''. “I’m not really seeing the fuss about this girl, but here. Here’s our magic missile. Take a look.”

Selica and Ashlin, who also got curious on what’s happening, walks closer to the old man’s magic missile and inspects it. According to Selica’s reading, and from her own experience, there’s nothing so special about this missile at all.

“I don’t get it.” Selica scratches her head, “Then how were you able to shoot it so far and fast?” ”Practice. Decades worth of practice.” Deringer answers while bringing out his silver revolver. “And with the help of this thing. It’s the equivalent of a staff or a wand for us. Helps us focus our spell for specific stuff like accuracy.” ”Practice?” Selica is now completely dumbfounded. You can’t practice spells like that. Practice casting a spell sure, but practicing it to make it do things beyond its normal limitations? Then you’re just casting a different spell altogether. ”Hmm I see. I kinda understand.” Ashlin nods in agreement with Deringer.

“HOW?” Selica’s face whips at Ashlin for some answers. “How did you get it??”

“Well, it’s kind of similar to mine.” Ashlin raises both her hands and flexes by closing them in and out. “I’m a Spellgraph mage. Compared to your spells, Sel. My magic is akin to casting the spell “Sparks” over and over again. Though in my case I was trained to use my body as the spellgraph’s conduit and channel its effects depending on how I need it.” Ashlin shadow boxes in the air and a quick rush of electricity immediately races from her shoulder down to her fists. Then she steps back, and another surge of electricity follows her movement as well. “It took me several childhood years just not to get myself shocked by my own magic, and half a decade more just to learn the basics of my father tries to teach me.”

“I-I see.” Selica is having a hard time to grasp Ashlin’s magical practices, but it has also opened her eyes that there’s more to casting magic than just declaring them like she’s used to. “OH! speaking of magic! Hey Ashlin, I finally found out Gallian’s magic.” ”No way! What is it?” Ashlin and Selica start gossiping, and aside from the digging happening at the back of the cave, everyone remains silent and listens to the two friends talking.

Ten minutes have passed and the cave has started to fill up with girl gossip. Though Selica and Ashlin tried to offer assistance to the boys digging behind them, Deringer stopped them and told them to keep themselves rested if anything happened. ”You know what,” Ashlin’s lying by the fire with Selica sitting beside her, the two have grown quite comfortable resting side by side by the hearth. “I can still respect the hustle, but goddamn does she need to work on it.” She has just heard Gallian’s method of magic and kind of theorized it with Selica. “I thought she was just milking the boy, but I guess she was going for more than that.”

“True,” Selica can’t really deny that Gallian’s “flirting” is really just sad to look at even for her. “Though I think things will get better for her after discovering she doesn’t need to go all the way to copy someone’s magic.” She recalls the time Gallian copied her magic while she was dying before. “She can just be friendly to someone, no need to go all flirty like.” ”I don’t know. I still want to see her try her “flirting” every once in a while. For our entertainment.” Ashlin snickers a bit while Selica rolls her eyes.

“You three are really close, huh?” Mirna speaks up. She has been sitting across the fire from the girls meditating and listening to them. “How long have you known each other?” ”Oh! Not that long, just today.” Selica explains, and then it hit on her. They did just meet today, yet being with Gallian and Ashlin feels so natural that it feels like they’ve been friends for the longest time.

“Shh.” Deringer perks up as Despi cocks her gun with purple magic. “Contacts, captain.” Shades of people started to run towards the cave from the west buildings.

“Whites?”

“Negative. Looks like mages.” Despi continues to hold the trigger. “Around 3 people.” ”Alright,” Deringer stands up with gun already at hand, “Girls standby in case anything happens.” He slowly walks out of the cave and approaches their new guest midway. ”Greetings!” Deringer greets their potentially new friends. “Names please.” Selica and Ashlin peak over the barricade to see the approaching people up close. From what they can see, there are two male figures up front, with the broader one running ahead than the rest, and a frail figure in the back.

“Vampyr! Vampyr! Ni Holio!” The broad man is screaming something as he points to himself.

“What?” Deringer can’t seem to understand the man’s language. “No Holio? Do you not speak Common?” The man’s complexion is very pale and his clothes are in taters. Cut marks are visible on his body with a noticeable patched one near his lower gut.

“Common? Ehen.” He shakes his head, and points to himself again. “Vampyr.”

“Vampyr, yes you’re a vampire. I can clearly see that.” Deringer wasn’t even phased by the vampire standing in front of him. Selica, on the other hand, is taken aback when she realizes what “Vampyr” actually meant. “Ni Holio, though? I don’t know what’s that.” ”He-!” Another voice, this time younger than the vampire, shouts behind. Selica notices the young boy is wearing damp clothes fit for royalty. His golden hair is darkened and tousled by the conflict. When he finally reaches Deringer, both his hands are on his knees and he’s laboriously breathing. “He’s saying “He’s a vampire, no sun please.””

“Oh yeah right, Holio means sun, got it.” Deringer’s eyes spark up after realizing the words. “It’s been a while since I talk in Moonsie. No there’s no sun inside. There’s a fire hearth though.” ”Fire?” The boy looks at his vampire friend, “Ni Holio, tera lio des?” He speaks the same language again. ”Lio! Goun lio!” The vampire seems to be happy about the prospect of fire. ”Of course you are. Apologies, my name is Tavian, and this lumbering man here is Freddie.” He introduced himself and his friend. “And the lady behind us is Sharra.”

“I was going to introduce myself, Tavian.” Unlike the two, the woman is just casually walking behind the group. Her gait is really effeminate, as if she’s parading the latest sets of clothing, but her actual wardrobe is the exact opposite. Chain cuffs clasps on her wrists and clothes barely covering most of herself, Selica can clearly see this woman has been through a lot already. Is she a former slave? What is a slaver driver even doing here anyways?

“Woah there missy.” But of all the people Deringer is wary about, it’s her. “Just so you know, we’re all in this together. So no...charming people in the cave, okay?”

The woman Sharra sighs, and as she does, two tendril-like tentacles appear behind her back and limps over her shoulders. What is she? Selica wonders? Charming? Is she a succubus? “Yes, old man. We’re here to help, and help alone. If you didn’t know we were the ones who were burning the nests. You should be thanking us for that.” What, these are the people who were burning the nests? But they’re just three people?

“Really now. how did you do it, if I may ask?” Deringer is a bit cautious as well, but at this point he lowers his gun already.

“It’s all this big man’s work.” Sharra taps Freddie by the shoulder. “Honestly we still don’t know how he did it.” Freddie responds with a goofy smile and wave. ”Anyways, we’ve heard that this is the way to get out of this test, right?” Tavian exclaimes. “Miss Revo told us all about it.”

Deringer obviously still had questions, but he just sighs and guides them inside. “Alright, alright. We’ll brief you in as well.”

At this point, a snowball effect has finally taken hold in the entire operation. After a brief explanation, and an almost disastrous example, the new trio proved that they were indeed the ones responsible for burning the other Silencer’s sniper nests. Apparently it started as target practice for Freddie, but eventually they discovered the importance of those things he was attacking and made it their mission to do so.

“Summer Romance.” Freddie flicks a small bead of fire towards the open rain and it explodes almost near the mouth of the cave, nearly caving the entire group inside. Apparently the only Common language Freddie knows are these cheesy phrases concerning romantic subplots from stories, and decided to use these words to name his fireballs with.

“Dang it all!” Deringer barely dodges the burning bead within a hair’s breath “How the bloody sand pits are you alive with a stupid aim like that?!?”

Selica aids the vampire with communication by casting a “Tongues” spell over him to help him socialize better.

“Thank you, little one.” Freddie’s talking in Moonsie, but there’s a filter over his voice that translates his language to Common. “And yes I can aim, you old malignant bat. It’s just too crowded here.”

“Gora! Kamah! Come here boys!” Two spectral dogs slowly manifest beside Tavian and start digging alongside Gregor’s golems. Once they were briefed, Tavian immediately began helping in digging to make the process faster.

While Sharra, who Selica has finally confirmed to be a succubus, sits meekly by the fire and watches Tavian do his work. After a few more minutes more and more mages discover and join their cause in the cave’s operation. Some say they were invited by either Revo’s or Shellon’s group, but most of them point at Selica’s cry for help as their reason for coming here.

“Honestly we were hoping we could loot your bodies when we reach here.” One of the mages admits while the mage is warming up by the fire to get her mana flow going. “But we weren’t expecting...this.” The mage points at the entire operation in the cave. “And thinking back, we kind of forgot that we were actually in a test. I guess you could say what you’re doing here is very hopeful.”

“Ughhh,” Selica covers her face as she feels embarrassed knowing that everyone came together here because of her desperate plea for help.

“Where are you able to find any Silencers?” Despi asks the mages who are resting while taking a break from her guarding shift. ”That’s the strange part, we didn’t.” Another mage replies as they were getting ready to help at the back of the cave. “We didn’t see any Silencers as we were going here at all.”

“Hmm, captain?” Despi pivots back to Deringer who is listening intently by the fire.

“Yes, this is bad.” Deringer stands up as if it was his turn to guard the post. “They’re waiting for us to group together here, then corral us afterwards like livestock to a slaughterhouse.”