“Are you sure,” Walter’s shivering prolonged each word just to the point that Reeve thought she would scream, then the next word would blessedly begin, only to restart the same cycle of frustration, “this isn’t a dragon’s den?”

“Dragons are nest-dwellers, not cave-dwellers, Wurmslayer,” Dawn said as she finished removing one of her mid-calf length boots and began pouring rainwater from it. Leaf was shedding her dripping cloak after having laid out sopping hay for the pony, which was ignoring the feed and staring warily at the night outside, which continued to strobe with lighting.

“I would have thought you of all people would know that, Wurmslayer?” Dusk said, reaching behind her head with both hands to wring water from her braid.

“Bees are more my subject of expertise,” Walter said over a period of almost half a minute.

“Looks like something may use this as an occasional den…or dining room,” Reeve said, pushing a two-foot-long bone aside with the toe of her boot as she peered into the dark, low recess of the cave in which they were sheltering, the roof of which sloped down until it was lost in darkness, “but no signs of life at the moment.”

Walter eyed the bone. “I’m not sure I find lack of life reassuring, Sweetie.”

Walter’s shivering was getting worse, and Reeve was afraid he was on the verge of hypothermia. She’d seen someone unprepared for a mountain pass in the MMO succumb to hypothermia, and the way it had snuck up on its victim still gave her nightmares. She cast about for a way to warm him until they had a fire and food.

“OK, Dad. Time for more combat training.”

“Now?”

Reeve had time to unshoulder her bow, lay it and her naginata on a rock shelf protruding high on the cave wall, and pick and then replace a Giant Wolf Spider Egg from the sac at her waist before Walter shook the final portion of the single syllable from his blue lips.

“Yes. Now.” Reeve looked at the twins. “Tweedles, can you get a fire going and work on something warm to eat? I’m afraid my dad’s going to break a bone if he doesn’t stop shivering soon.”

“For Wurmslayer, yes,” Dawn said, her expression for Reeve less friendly than the words.

“Is there any chance we could keep the rain from blowing in here?” Walter said in the time it took Dawn to collect a small pile of tinder from the cave floor, while Dusk unpacked provisions from a leather rucksack.

“I can’t do anything about that, Dad.”

“But perhaps I can,” Dawn said. She rose and turned toward the mouth of the cave, raising her hands and bowing her head as though about to cover her face, but then she suddenly pushed her palms toward the exterior. Lightning flashed, illuminating for a moment water running down an unseen surface that spanned the cave mouth.

Reeve nodded appreciatively, her lips pursed slightly. “Shield spell?” She said. “I’ve never seen one cast like that.”

Dawn shrugged and returned to the pyramid of kindling she was building.

“That’s pretty advanced, isn’t it? For apprentices?” Reeve said. “I’ve heard mana barriers are basic stuff, but shields against physical objects aren’t easy.”

“Our master—,” Dawn started, a frown forming as Dusk immediately interrupted.

“—may be of the old ways, but he taught us a few useful things.”

“That’s fantastic!” Walter stuttered out slowly while Reeve swept debris from the area of the cave with the most headroom and Dawn drew sparks from a flint and nursed a few small flames into a steady fire.

“Best not to forget it’s there,” Dawn said. “It is not entirely rigid, more like coming upon taut leather, but still unpleasant to walk into unexpectedly.”

Nyx, who had been grooming herself since entering the cave, rose and moved cautiously to the opening, where she spent a moment sniffing at the rain running down the invisible shield, then lay down once more and curled into a tight ball, eyes watchful slits looking into the night. The honey badger rolled from her back onto her paws, trotted across the cave, and lay down at the edge of the cave mouth opposite Nyx.

“OK, Dad. Let’s start with some target practice before we go to live drills.”

“Spiderlings?”

“Let’s warm you up before you try to talk anymore, or we’ll be up all night.” Reeve looked over the cave wall. “Tweedles—“

“Wurmslayer could bestow us with sobriquets if he chose,” Dusk said, “but we do not extend that right to you, Spawn.”

“OK, OK.” Reeve looked between the twins and considered her options. She let out a slow breath through her nose. “Truce?”

The twins exchanged a silent glance, and then each gave a curt nod.

“OK, great. Now that we’re all BFFs, can you two do any passive sigils?”

The twins nodded. “We have a set we use to mark rooms we’ve completed searching when clearing enemy lairs,” Dawn said.

“Great. Wait. How often have you had to ‘clear enemy lairs?’”

“Merely part of our training,” Dawn said.

“OK, good. Anyway. No, wait. Why didn’t you use your magic when you were trapped in the cage at the kobold camp?”

“The iron was imbued with Mage’s Bane.”

Reeve tilted her head back and squinted down her hooked nose as though trying to answer a difficult question in class. “Absorbs mana?”

“And dampens or extinguishes all but the most powerful spells, sometimes reflecting spells unpredictably to deadly effect.”

“Well, thanks for jumping in once you could. Could you mark this wall?” Reeve pointed to a relatively smooth portion of the cave wall near her hip height. “Anything that will last a while. And one that doesn’t shift shape.”

The twins didn’t move.

“Please,” Reeve said.

“Very well,” Dusk said. “For Wurmslayer.” She rose from the semicircle of ingredients she had arranged and walked to stand before the point Reeve had indicated. Raising one half-cupped hand, with the other she slashed the air quickly with seven strokes, then raised that hand as well. Starting as a single point, a glowing green sigil expanded to float, completely unmoving, in the center of the region Dusk had transected.

“Awesome, that’s perfect!”

Dusk snorted quietly as she walked past Reeve, but Reeve thought the half-elf looked pleased.

“Dad. That is your target. Knives out. Start throwing.”

Feeling the first hints of the fire’s heat beginning to spread along the ceiling of the cave, Reeve crossed her arms and watched Walter’s halfling carefully remove his knives from their sheaths and square up a half-dozen yards from the sigil.

Walter held the Crude Iron Dagger in his right hand and the Roughly Hewn Wooden Knife in his left. Eyeing the sigil with the care of a golfer planning a tricky approach, he raised the dagger and threw it, trying to impart just the right amount of rotation as Reeve had been coaching him.

The dagger flew straight into the base of the wall where it met the cave floor, the metal blade emitting a dull vibration that sent Reeve’s shoulders toward her ears and her palms into the air.

“Hold on! Hold on! I forgot about a backstop. You’ll destroy that thing in no time.” Reeve turned to the twins. “Could a shield spell work?”

Dusk tilted her head to one side. “If sufficiently weak, it will arrest the blade but not cause it wear.”

“Could you?”

Dusk rose and faced the sigil. She repeated the motion Dawn had performed at the cave-mouth but focused her hands more closely as she aimed the spell. Giving the area around the sigil an appraising look, she said, “That should suffice. Care you to test it, Wurmslayer?”

“Boy howdy,” Walter said and threw the wooden knife straight into the base of the wall, where it emitted a splintering sound upon impact and came to rest next to the dagger.

“I see,” Dusk said. She again raised her hands, dropped her head, and then, instead of pushing her hands toward the wall, spread them away from each other, one toward the floor and one the ceiling.

“OK, Dad.” Reeve walked to the wall, retrieved the two blades, and returned them to Walter. “Again.”

Walter narrowed his eyes at the sigil, raised the dagger, and threw it straight into the base of the wall, but this time there was no ringing, as the blade appeared to embed itself in something unseen but soft or viscous, before slowly tilting, hilt first, to the floor.

“Nice, Dusk! Just aim higher, Dad.”

Dusk turned and walked lightly back to her makeshift kitchen.

Walter eyed the sigil once more. Mentally imagining a second sigil floating above it, he aimed for the unseen target and threw the wooden knife.

“Dad! I said aim higher.”

“I did, Evie. I aimed right there.” Walter pointed to the spot above the sigil where he’d imagine his real target.

Reeve retrieved the blades from the base of the wall, feeling the shield spell as she did. “Heee! It feels like sticking my hand in gelatin. That’s so cool!”

Dusk did not turn away from her food preparation, but could not help but smile to herself.

“Aim higher this time.”

“I did, Honey.”

“Higher than that.”

Walter took the blades from Reeve and felt their weight in his hands. He looked at the glowing sigil, then imagined another above, then another above that. Raising the dagger, he aimed for the topmost target he was envisioning and loosed the blade, focusing on technique rather than force.

“Seriously?” Reeve watched the dagger embed itself in the shield at the base of the wall. “Maybe try throwing harder this time.”

Walter nodded, repeating his mental process but throwing the wooden knife as hard as he could.

“Well…,” Reeve walked to retrieve the blades, “…that top-heavy body of yours can throw hard.” She picked the blades up from the base of the wall.

Walter rolled onto his hands and knees and rose, then dusted his pants. He looked at his arms warily. “They, uh, have some kickback.”

“Recoil. Your freakish forearms appear to have the equivalent of recoil. We need to get some mass on your lower body ASAP.” Reeve handed the blades to her father again. “Why don’t you close your eyes this time and just throw the blade straight. Maybe you’re psyching yourself out.”

Walter shrugged, closed his eyes, and threw the iron dagger as straight and level as he could imagine.

“How is that possible?”

When Walter opened his eyes Reeve was holding both sides of her head and his blade lay at the base of the wall.

“Look, just throw it at the ceiling.” Reeve smoothed her hair back and tightened the leather scrunchy.

“Straight up?”

“No, aim for where the wall meets the ceiling.”

Walter hoisted the wooden knife and threw it. It sailed into the junction of wall and ceiling.

“Woot!” Reeve walked to retrieve the blades. “Well, you have at least two options.” She handed Walter the blades and then walked and stood next to the sigil. “Just start chucking at different angles, low to high. Let’s confirm this.”

“I don’t think you should be standing there while I’m throwing knives, Reeve.”

“I think we know where they’re going to end up, and I’m not there.”

Walter looked skeptically at Reeve.

“And, if you do hit me, it’ll be, like, one point of damage. I’ll be fine.”

Walter shook his head.

“Look, this’ll be quicker. Plus,” she grinned at the halfling, “we can see how good you are at catching when I toss them back over to you. Useful skill.”

Half an hour later Reeve was confident that her father’s current halfling build allowed only throws that would go high or low, and Walter was confident that he could not catch a carefully lofted knife by anything other than the blade.

“Wrap more cloth around it, it’ll be fine,” Reeve said as her father stared at the blood seeping through the bandages wrapped around his hands. “One more thing, then we’ll stop.”

“The stew will be ready when you do,” Dusk said, stirring the steaming pot that hung from a makeshift tripod over the fire Dawn had built to a roar.

“Aim way to the side. Like, way to the side.” Reeve pointed across the sigil from where she stood beside it.

Walter sighed and gingerly pulled the dagger from its sheath, raised it, and aimed away from the sigil.

“Owww! Ugghhhhhh…” Reeve’s grunt bled into a low, frustrated breath as she pulled the dagger from her thigh. “OK. Whatever combination of Skills and Abilities you have right now makes it pretty much impossible for you to throw anything straight toward a target.”

“I guess so, Sweetie.” Walter guiltily accepted the bloody dagger that Reeve limped across the room to offer him. “You want help with that?”

“No, I can bandage it.”

“Here, I have more left over from my hands.” Walter reached into his hammerspace and brought his hand back forward sending the bee smoker sailing straight through the heart of the sigil to impact the shield, release a puff of smoke, and slide with a clang to the ground.

The honey badger hissed for a moment, then turned back to its vigil.

“What the heck, Dad?” Reeve stared at the smoke rising toward the ceiling, the glow of the sigil imparting the smoke with an eerie glow of its own. “Do that with your dagger.”

Walter shrugged and threw the dagger into the base of the wall.

“Um?” Reeve looked at him. “Try your book. Your, uh, ledger.”

“You want me to throw my ledger at the wall?”

“No, I want you to throw your ledger at that target.”

Walter shrugged again, reached into his hammerspace, and threw his ledger straight into the sigil, from whence it fell and landed noisily on the bee smoker.

“Items associated with your Class must have some sort of perk that negates your terrible combat skills.

“That’s good!” Walter said.

“It would be, if it was useful at all. Let me think about it, see if there’s a way we could use it to your advantage. But, you’ve stopped shivering. Stash your bee stuff. Let’s eat.”

Walter retrieved his items, and he and Reeve joined the twins and Leaf around the fire. Dusk handed each a carved wooden bowl full of steaming venison stew. The weary party ate in silence for several minutes.

Once halfway through his bowl, Walter said through a mouthful of stew, “Level 2.”

“Huh?” Reeve said.

“It says I’m Level 2 now.”

“It does? That’s awesome! And about time. No one’s ever taken three weeks to make it to Level 2 before, I bet.”

“And my Innovation skill went up,” Walter said. “And it looks like, oh…”

“What?”

“I guess hitting you with my dagger was the thing that gave me the, uh, XP to make it to Level 2.”

Reeve frowned. “Glad to help out. But, seriously, this is great. You’ll be able to add some new Skills and increase Abilities. You’ll want to choose carefully, once you read over the options. We can talk about your choices later.”

Walter nodded, still chewing, and stared tiredly into space as the party continued eating in silence.

When Reeve finished her bowl, she gestured to the others to hand her theirs as they finished. From her Inventory, she pulled an empty loot bag and began wiping the bowls clean. When the bag became too saturated to clean effectively, she whipped it out of existence and pulled another from her Inventory.

Dawn leaned forward and laid a new piece of wood on the fire.

“Pyromaniac,” Walter said.

“Wurmslayer?” Dawn said, seeming affronted.

“Oh, no, not you, Dawn,” Walter said, chuckling slightly. “It’s my new Skill.”

Reeve stopped wiping. “Why do you have a new Skill?”

“I applied the points from leveling, like you said.”

“No! I did not say. I said you’d want to choose carefully, once you read over the options. And that we could talk about your choices before you did.”

“You said we would talk about the choices later.”

“Yes?”

“That’s what we’re doing now. Do you want to hear the choices I made?”

“Is one a Pyromaniac skill?”

“Yes.”

“Then, no, I don’t think I want to talk about it now.”

Walter pursed his lips. “You know how much I like to build fires in the fireplace when it gets nippy. Your mother calls me her Little Pyromaniac.”

Reeve turned away, wiping roughly at the bowls with the loot bag.

Trying to identify where exactly he’d made a mistake, Walter was distracted by a hint of red amidst the detritus at the edge of the cave where he sat. He moved some leaves off the object and picked it up. It was red cloth, shaped like a bowl or cone. There were smudged marks on one side that looked familiar to him. He held the piece of cloth aloft and tried to divine its purpose. With his bandaged hands, he rotated it several times, unable to figure out which orientation was the useful one, so he turned his attention to the seemingly familiar smudges. He traced the edges to gauge the approximate size of the object that made them.

“What is it?” Reeve said.

Walter looked up, uncertain what to say, but saw that Reeve was speaking to Nyx. The cheetah was standing, rigid, nose raised slightly. Walter saw that the honey badger had also risen and was looking around the mouth of the cave.

“What say your companions?” Dusk said from where she reclined. She leaned on one elbow, her legs extended, one ankle resting on the other near Walter.

“Dunno. Nyx isn’t sure yet.”

Walter looked at the bottom of Dusk’s boots and tilted his head slightly. He held out the cloth, comparing its marking to Dusk’s boot.

“‘Kay, Dad,” Reeve said. “Let’s do a little more target practice before bed. But, moving targets.” Reeve jiggled the Giant Wolf Spider Egg Sac at her waist.

Walter considered arguing, but he saw his daughter’s determined stance, one hand on hip, a habit that reminded him of Wanda. “OK, Evie. Just one though, huh?”

“Let’s see how it goes,” she said and plucked one of the small eggs from the sac.