Once Scria was settled in we all headed off in different directions to get ready for the expedition. Bjorn basically took charge and told us all to meet by the East Gate the next morning so we could practice working together. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd need, and everyone just seemed to scatter so I was left alone. My first stop was Poroto. He was in his shop with the same bored look, and fashion sense as before.

"Hi, welcome to the odd magic stuff and... Oh, you. Have you learned what a witch is?" He sounded slightly less bored.

"Not really, I'm kind of supposed to be my party's rogue, so I'm not sure what I'm doing."

"Well, of all the magic classes, and I mean pure magic classes, not those hybrid ones, the witch is best suited to act as a rogue. You have the ability to learn curses, and spells to manipulate events from the shadows. You could curse a rich man to hate his gold, or a guard to be absent minded. You can plant suggestions in the minds of the weak willed, and create or call minions to aid you. You may not have the power of an elementalist, or the trickery of an illusionist, but you have subtlety. So I doubt you are ready for the next tier of spells, but I can offer you spell training for what you know, or help you learn a new spell." He looked exhausted after talking for so long, but still bored.

"Can I take a look at what I could learn?"

"Certainly, if you place your hand on this orb you will be given options for your current capabilities." He seemed to pull an orb out of nowhere, and handed it to me.

As soon as I touched the orb it started glowing and I got a notification.

Attention

This orb will display available spells for your class by catagory

Available catagories:

Fire

Shadow

Curse

Hex

I started by looking at the options for curses. Mostly because I wanted an ability that could remove curses just in case I accidentally, or not so accidentally, cursed a friend. Oh, and to hopefully get rid of my curse. I found a couple spells that countered curses when they were cast, or gave a bit of resistance before they were cast, but there was nothing that removed curses after they were cast. I felt the curse list was a little lacking. There weren't many at all. So then I moved on the hexes. Hexes were kind of like curses, except they weren't permanant. There were also a lot of them, and they had very specific targets.

There was a whole sub list of the malfunction hex. You could get a wing malfunction, or voice malfunction, or knee malfunction, or pretty much anything malfunction. Like locks, doors, and traps. There was one hex spell called hexproof that protected from hexes, and hexes that caused bad luck (which is kind of what I though a hex was anyway) but there were so many I decided to remember the hexes I liked, and moved on the fire and shadow lists.

Fire was pretty much what I expected. Lots of spells that burned things. The biggest change between spells was the shape. Some spells were like explosions, some were like flamethrowers, some were like beams, and some only hit one creature. There was one surprising fire spell though. Basically it removed physical impurities, like poison, or infections, and stopped bleeding.

Shadow was a little less expected. Yes there were stealth spells, and spells to summon shadow creatures, but there were also spells that formed contracts. I got a little distracted by the contract spell, mostly because the description was very, very long, so when my play time alarm went off it surprised me.

"Oh." Poroto looked at me like he expected me to keep talking. "How much does it cost to learn a spell?"

"That depends on the spell. For what you would learn, it could be anywhere from 10 gold to a few hundred."

Then I realized, I was broke. "Ok, I've got somewhere to be soon, so I'll come back later to actually learn a spell or two. I really like the contract one from Shadow, and the lock hex thing, see you later!" I handed back the orb and practically ran out of the store.

I decided to get to the East Gate before logging off, so I headed to the rooftops, and through a mixture of Shadow Step and running I made it to the gate.

When I logged back on, I saw Bjorn leaning against the wall talking with Scria. I was a little worried that I was late, but since Lily and Marcus weren't there I figured I was ok.

"Hey guys, hope you haven't been waiting too long."

Bjorn smiled, "We just got here, and you beat the other two so, that's a point for you."

"Did ya give me points?" Scria seemed a little nervous, probably because this was her first time working with the rest of us.

"Of course, but remember I make this all up and the points don't matter."

"Then ya better give me lotsa points. Like a billion."

"Fine, but Bwyd has a trillion." He patted my head with his enormous hand.

"What did I do to get that many?"

"Contracts." He winked.

"Oh, I found a spell to make more contracts, and a hex that can unlock locks. There are a lot of hexes. It's kinda like a hex for this a hex for that, and a hex to not get hexed." I started nervously talking because I realized this was the first time I had worked with anyone except Marcus. "There's a curse for that too, well not to get not hexed, but not cursed, and, I didn't get any..."

"Bwyd, take a breath. Good, now again. Have you ever left the city before?" He knelt down in front of me, so his head was at the same height as mine.

"Um, I technically started outside, so yeah, but that was a safe area, and I got teleported here. I think. I don't know?"

"Alright, calm down. We're just heading out a little way. There is nothing too dangerous, and you'll be fine." He was talking slowly.

"That's not what I worried about, I, I just don't want to mess up." My panic was starting to seem pointless. These were the most accepting people I had ever met.

"We don't care if you mess up. We're all friends here." He patted my head a couple times and stood up. "There's Marcus and Lily, looks like we're ready to go."

Before Marcus and Lily joined us Bjorn led the way through the gate, he didn't even give them a chance to say hi. All he said when they got close was "You're late" and away we went. Surprisingly, Lily and Marcus didn't say a word and just started following.