Sheltered from the rough waters of the Galion Sea in the south, Elmvale’s port was mostly used to repair the damage that ships sustained from its storms. International law declared that all ships heading through the grand canal must be in pristine condition in order to sail its length. This law was in place so that no shipwrecks would block the important trade route. The grand canal permitted passage right through the central continent, allowing ships to cut months off of their journey had they travelled by any other route. Every nation routinely docked in its port. Yet despite its importance to trade it was not an overly large town, nor particularly fortified, and this was by design, so that it would not draw the envy of nations who might decide to take it for themselves.

It was an unspoken treaty that held the wrath of each of the great nations at bay. With no wealth to envy, and a neutral diplomatic stance, it had avoided the horrors of war for over a millenia.

Ten kilometers to the northeast the village of Gimly was initially a lumber camp used to supply the port. The winds sweeping through the misty meadows drove large windmills used to cut lumber to size. It grew over a couple of centuries as woodcutters and woodland hunters built their houses close to where they worked. The market square was the spot where the original camp used to be, but now it was paved with stone, and had a fountain at its center. The guard and the forge came later, as monster attacks from the woods and the meadows became commonplace..

Tad walked through the market square and made his way to the barracks. He blew a puff of hot air as he walked past Mirio training a bunch of new recruits in the yard. While Mirio was his younger brother there was something about Mirio’s nature that had always left him unsettled. As a child he would often pick fights with Mirio just to see if he might expose an ugly side of his character. Mirio never really fought back, which was what made it fun. I mean who wouldn’t enjoy having someone to annoy without much risk of getting hit back.

Tad was taller, stronger, and more competitive than Mirio. He was born gifted with a thick barrel-like chest and strong arms, and his brow hung low over his eyes like a beast. Yet despite his brutish appearance his voice was usually delicate and polite when speaking to others except when in a foul mood. While often mistaken for a brute he was actually quite smart and knew more than Mirio about most topics. And even though Mirio was a fast learner, he was faster.

As he walked into the captain’s office he carried himself in a way that was similar to that of a noble. His father, Barny, often spoke of his family as the strongest in all of Gimly; blessed with superior blood, and handed down from generation to generation like a gift from the gods.

The captain finished scrawling some notes into a ledger and turned his head up to greet Tad. “Yes lad, can I help you?”.

“I’ve come to join the guard”

The captain looked him over. “You are a big lad aren’t you, sure why not. You will start as a trainee, and then when you come of age I will see about admitting you as a member”.

“No” Tad grumbled, “You allowed Mirio to enter the guard, and he is two years younger than I am”.

The captain’s eyebrow raised, “He was a special case, all other applicants must go through the official process”.

“My brother is a weakling!”

“Brother?! You are his brother?!” the captain said.

“Yes”

“Are you really serious about joining the guard?”

“Yes”

“Okay, well your brother is out in the yard training the other recruits, you can join them if you like”.

Tad grumbled something and walked over to the window overlooking the yard. “Only if you watch”

“Why would I watch a training session? I have work to do my boy”

“Just watch me”.

Tad headed back outside and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Mirio! Fight me!”. The captain turned in his chair and looked out the window. “What is this?”

Tad stormed towards Mirio and scooped up a training axe from the weapons rack. “I’m sick of hearing all around town about ‘the great Mirio’, we both know you are the weakest in our family!”.

Mirio’s students all stepped back out of the way and looked on with wide jaws. Who in the world would willingly challenge Mirio to a fight? Tad’s muscles rippled in the sunlight, and his physique was like that of a half orc.

Mirio turned towards Tad. “Easy big guy, I don’t want any drama. I’m in the middle of a lesson”.

Tad turned around to the students “Hah! Don’t you guys know you are just listening to a fake? Mirio has always been good with words, don’t let him fool you. He is nothing but a mongrel dog!”

Haaack Peteeew

Tad spat at Mirio’s feet and then shoved him with the axe handle, forcing him a couple of steps backwards.

“Easy there, I won’t fight you,” Mirio said as raising his hands.

“You always hide behind that excuse of yours, because you know you are weak inside”

Mirio felt sour hearing his brother’s words. He knew how his brother felt about him, but it was another thing to hear it explicitly. He had sworn to his father to never lay a hand on Tad, and he had stayed true to his word his entire childhood.

Tad charged at Mirio like a bull. His shoulder thudded hard into Mirio, and picked him up clean off of his feet. They smashed through a dividing wall that led into another part of the yard, splinters flying in all directions, and hurtled towards the stone walls at the end of the training grounds. Mirio kicked his foot into Tad’s hip joint at the last moment, slamming Tad’s back into the wall. He stepped back from Tad and casually brushed off splinters.

Tad regained his composure quickly, his competitive nature fuelling his next attack. He swung the wooden axe wildly, making loud whooshes as Mirio ducked and weaved just out of reach. Tad then tossed the axe at Mirio’s feet causing him to stumble, and leaped in close, grabbing Mirio’s armor and driving his knee into his chest.

Mirio smothered the blow with his hands but was tossed back several paces. Tad readied his meaty fists, and threw blow after blow.

THUD THUD THUD THUD

Each blow glanced off Mirio’s raised arms. Mirio extended his arms and pushed Tad back. Tad reacted instantly and grabbed Mirio’s wrist, blasting his elbow at his brother’s head.

Mirio slipped his head to the side, and realised that Tad wasn’t going to cool down. In all their fights before it had not lasted much longer than this, yet Tad was still going.

“I’m sick of your bullshit Mirio! All my life I’ve had to stomach it! I’m going to put you in your place!”

ROAR!!!

The captain stood up from his chair and watched intently. “Why is Mirio not using his footwork? He is just standing there to get hit. Is he doing it to calm the guy down?”.

Tad charged at Mirio again, but this time Mirio jammed his forearm against Tad’s shoulder, and entered into a wrestling stance. The two brothers pushed against each other like two bulls with horns locked.

The students gasped in shock, wondering if this man that had appeared from nowhere was really a match for their instructor. While Mirio was young he was a role model amongst the guards and many looked up to him and wished to become as skilled as him one day.

Tad tossed Mirio off of him, and shoved Mirio back several times, sheer force and rage overpowering his defense.

“You see this? This guy is the one everyone is talking about? Let me show you who my brother really is deep down!”

Tad walked over to the weapons rack and pulled out a steel blade. He pointed its tip at Mirio “You are going to have to do something!”.

Mirio focused past the blade, past his brother, and into the rage and emotion driving his actions. He loathed this side of his brother. It was a burden he felt whenever he was in his family home, a silent demand that he not express who he truly was. It was stifling… He knew he had promised his father to never strike his brother, but by this point in his life he didn’t care anymore. Who was his father to stand in his way anyways? Just yet another man amidst many others who believed they were above others because they thought it was so.

Mirio bitterly accepted the truth that his brother, mother, sister, and father were not able to hold special meaning in his life. He had wanted to avoid this fact all his life. He wore a forced smile, and allowed them every leeway. But the truth was the truth, and it was ugly. He meant nothing to them, and his true nature was nothing but an inconvenience to them. Tad’s actions elaborated on that fact louder than his words ever could. Mirio’s face was strained with anguish, but his eyes filled with resolve.

Mirio’s field of view filled with a dark shroud as Tad lifted the blade above his head and charged towards Mirio. With a distasteful look, Mirio stood still and lifted one arm. He plunged forwards with one step, and his hand came into contact with Tad’s neck, lifting his brother off of the ground and sending the blade flying past. Mirio stared up at Tad with emotionless eyes, and held onto his throat firmly.

The captain jumped through the window, and ran towards the ring. “Mirio! NO!”. He had seen this look in men’s eyes before. The look of absolute and cold hearted determination. The look of a man about to kill.

Mirio’s grip was threateningly tight on Tad’s neck. Tad shook his body attempting to loosen it, but it stood firm.

*Fuck you Mirio, you are weak, I will force you off of me!*

Tad summoned up all of his power and thrashed like a cornered animal. Foam and spit shot from his mouth from rage and hatred. He brought both of his hands together and smashed down at Mirio’s arm with his forearms, pummeling his flesh with force strong enough to break bone. Yet it bounced off of his arm like rubber.

“Mirio, stop!” the captain yelled again.

Mirio didn’t shift his gaze, but looked at Tad’s struggling face as it slowly dawned on him, that he would not be able to escape. Tad’s attempts to break free continued to fail, until his rage collapsed under its own weight. As bitter as the truth was to accept Tad had no other choice but to admit it.

*He has won… I can’t fight him… When did he get this strong? Was he always this way?*

Mirio gently placed Tad back down onto the ground and released his grip. His eyes still cold.

“You almost killed him!” the captain yelled.

“No. I didn’t” Mirio replied. He then walked over to the steel blade and picked it up. “Go home Tad”.

Tad nodded. A new found respect filled Tad’s eyes. Had his brother always held this power inside? How could he have ever missed it.

A deep sadness filled Mirio’s heart. He hated having to so viscerally prove such an ugly truth to one of his own blood. Yet he was proud of the fact that the grip on his brother’s neck had not left a mark. Like a man might handle a wild animal, he had calmed the rage in his brother’s soul.

There is coldness in facing ugly truths, and his family home was a place that made him feel… Cold and alone. So having had it follow him here, to his world, to the only place he felt free being himself. He had to protect himself, to protect his refuge from what sought to strike at his heart.

“Wait, didn’t you want to join the guards?” the captain yelled out at Tad as he left the grounds.

“Forget it” Tad replied. “I’ve got other things to do”.

The captain looked over at Mirio with disbelief. “Now what the hell was that?!”

Mirio sighed and put the steel sword back onto the training rack. “Sorry about the thing” Mirio said as nodding over at the smashed up divider.

“Your brother is a big lad isn’t he”

“Yeah, he can’t fight for shit though, just doesn’t have a passion for it so relies only on his strength. I have to thank him for his nature though, fighting him growing up taught me to be relaxed when facing up against opponents bigger than me”

“Oh so that is why you were never afraid of fighting guys like the tower”

“Yeah… My brother cares in his own messed up way, he isn’t a bad guy. It is just…”

The captain turned to the trainees “Can you guys go train by yourselves for a bit, I wanna have a word with Mirio”. “Come to my office for a bit, let’s have a chat”

The captain put both chairs in his room by the window and grabbed a pair of glasses along with a bottle of malted liquor. He poured each of them a glass and handed one to Mirio. “Please, sit”.

Mirio nodded and took a sip from the glass and looked out on the trainees in the yard as they continued drills he had shown them earlier. “You know… There was once a time where my brother saved my life”

“I was about eight or nine years old, and our mother took us to one of the coves on the southern coast. She always liked to walk by the sea to clear her head. She would leave us boys to play in the sand. You know, to build sand castles and things like that. Me being me I got a bit tired of staying in the same spot and decided to go for a swim. I waved at Tad from the water like an idiot trying to get him to come in with me. He just grumped back at me that he didn’t feel like it. I wasn’t trying to go out into deep water or anything, but I took a step and the ground underneath me fell away. I plunged into the water and a powerful riptide started sucking me out to sea. I fought my way to the surface but I was being swept out into the distance. My brother… He jumped into the water without hesitation, and caught up to me. He told me to be calm, and that we couldn’t swim against the current, that I had to trust him, and we needed to swim further to the side.”

“We swam hard for maybe twenty minutes, with nothing but the feeling of the abyss below us. But we swam together, somehow stronger because we were brothers. We were swept out of the cove, and swam out around the cliffs, and the rocks. Until finally the current let us go. We swam into a neighboring cove, and then climbed the cliff and walked back to where our mother had left us. We didn’t say a word about it, and when our mother returned she didn’t even know anything had happened”

The captain smiled. “That is a nice story”

“Yeah, it is a memory that has stayed with me. He is like me in that way. If there is a reason to do something he won’t question how scary the situation is, he will just do it. But as nice as the memory is… That doesn’t mean the way we know each other is like some sort of fairy tale. He has always been selfish, intense, and competitive to a fault. I have always been soft hearted, thoughtful, and focused on my own thing”

The captain placed his hand on Mirio’s shoulder. “It isn’t a bad thing to have conflicting feelings about someone you grew up with. In fact it shows you are growing into your own man. As you develop your own thoughts, feelings, and identity, not everything in life stays the same as how you saw it as a child. That is just part of what it means to become a man”

“Yeah, I know… It is just hard to swallow, that we love things that are just mirages in the end”

The captain withdrew his hand and took a sip of the liquor. “I knew this conversation would need a drink”

“Ha” Mirio smiled. “I don’t mean to be so serious. But thanks for listening”

“No problem. You know, we are all proud of you Mirio. I’ve known you since you were a little boy. Heck, when I first met you I thought to myself, ‘what the hell is Dereo doing inviting some little weed of a kid to come train with us’, but as soon as I saw that fire in your eyes everything changed. You weren’t just a child anymore in my eyes, but a symbol of what it means to be driven by something you love. I don’t think I’ve ever loved something as fiercely as you loved to train and fight”

“Love?” Mirio asked.

“Yeah, you just couldn’t get enough of swordplay. You just gobbled up every word, every concept, every little point I made, you caught onto it even when it wasn’t obvious at all. It was just such a privilege to watch you grow into the man you are now. Actually if I am being honest it was a little intimidating. You just consumed everything, left a guy like me with no excuses to hand out about just needing to try harder, or understand my point clearer, because you’d already done both. You were like a force of nature, and you still are. You made something out of every day. The fighter you are now… It is nothing short of genius. Heck, I’m sure even the knights, with their pompous obsession with noble blood would still take you in if you asked them”.

Mirio pulled a scrap of paper from his belt, and handed it to the captain.

“What is this?”. The captain’s eyes scanned up and down the parchment “Count Rickard already offered for you to join his knights? And you are turning him down?! Why Mirio!”

“As I look ahead to what I want to do with my life, it seems like I have to pick a road and stick to it. But I just don’t think that being a knight is what I want to do. I want to go out, and explore the world, not be tied down to the orders of a lord”

“We are all tied down to something Mirio”

“I know…”

“Why don’t you join the monster hunters then? You’d get to see the world and they have the ear of the nobility but aren’t honor bound to anything”

Mirio took the last sip of the liquor and put the glass onto the window sill. “They are like a pack of dogs all snapping at each other’s heels, I’d have to fight every last one of them like I just did with my brother. I don’t need that kind of stress”

“So what are you going to do? Stay in Gimly and guard the town forever”

“No, I’ll figure something else out, probably travel… Maybe even soon”

“I’m glad to hear that. You know all of us here would be sad to see you go, but it has always been our belief that you are meant for bigger things than Gimly. You should go out into the world and live it for all those that can’t. See and feel things that ordinary folk could never dream of. If you did that, you’d honor us, and we would always smile knowing you were out there doing something bigger than the rest of us”

Mirio was truly touched by the captain’s words. “Alright, thanks for the chat, it means a lot”

The captain stood up and brought Mirio into a hug. “Whatever you do, we’re proud of you bud. Do what makes you happy”

“I will”

…

Yuta snuck up to the adventure guild’s third floor. Madeleine droned on as she instructed a student in the ways of arcane magic. Yuta peeked into one of the rooms closest to Madeleine’s. It was empty so he made his way inside and picked up a glass from the table and placed it against the wall to hear what she was saying. He dragged a small table over and opened his notebook and began writing down everything he heard.

…

Mirio entered the smithy and turned to Darius. “I have the black ivory”. He then placed down the bundle of four horns and opened it for Darius.

“The last time I checked, rageclaws only have two horns, why are there four?”

“Ah, I was just extra grateful for your help is all, so these are freebies”

“How thoughtful of you. You realise I only need one. But these are great quality, so I’ll put them to good use” he said as he moved them off to the side. “On the topic of putting things to good use, how about you put this to good use”. Darius leaned over and picked up the finished set of full plate armor and put it on the table. It gleamed by the light of the forge, shining brightly with a fresh coat of polish.

“You finished it!?”. Mirio gawked at the craftsmanship, and how each of the joins were perfectly done. He unbuckled his leather armor and strapped on the breastplate. “Ha, a perfect fit! This is awesome!”. Mirio then strapped on the rest of the armor as Darius looked on with a contented smirk.

“Now you look the part. Just like a real knight”

“Haha, it is so cool”

“Oh and one more thing” Darius said as he reached under the counter to grab something. He then slid a helm onto the table that had a clasp visor . “If you are going to be wearing plate you need a helm to go with it, so I found this barbute and figured it would go well with your kit”.

“Is that what this style of helmet is called? A barbute? I probably won’t remember that but I like how it has two eye slots and that I can lift the front. It’s awesome, thankyou”

“I’m glad you like it”

Mirio took off the helm and noticed artwork engraved on the side “I like the flame engraving”.

“Yeah it is to represent Ember. The knights all have their crests engraved onto their helms. It isn’t extravagant or anything, but at minimum it’ll be a way that people can identify you and recognise you as you gain renown”

“Oh cool, I’m guessing renown is important?”

“Yes, if you want to get paid a decent amount so you can afford the best equipment it helps”

“Thanks for thinking ahead,” Mirio winked.

…

Yuta drew his ear back from the glass on the wall and jotted down the last of his notes for now.

BLING

He opened his status screen

You have gained level one in mana quantization. You now have access to one use of a cantrip finita.

“Yes!”

Madeleine’s voice called out from the other room “Wait! Who is there!?”

Yuta bolted from the room and shot down the stairs in a flash.

Madeleine entered the room Yuta had been in. She noticed that one of the tables was dragged out of place, and saw a glass sat upon it suspiciously close to the wall. She squinted her eyes and gripped tighter on her wand “A freeloader!”