The Day of the Tree was followed by the Day of the Moon. Filcarel was not an astrosopher, but it was hard to not think about basic things like what day of the week it was. And now that he didn’t have a set schedule, the astrosophist philosophy of acting out on the day’s theme was something that he was actually considering taking to heart.

  Most people did already rest on the Day of the Tree, but that’s as far as it tended to go. The Tree is a comfort to all, as it is said, and resting under it’s branches was the proper conduct for the day, according to astrosophists. It was a widely accepted truth that one day of rest every week was good, good for society, and also just a welcome foil to the Day of the Sun, which demanded hard work, accomplishing goals, and even glory.

  The moon was thematically mysterious and enigmatic. It was unpredictable in the way it moved through the heavens, and how it influenced the infinite plain. It was magically significant, but not in an easily quantifiable way. Worshipers of the Celestial Powers had their own mythology regarding Luna, but astrosophists considered the moon to be a wildcard. If you were to structure your life around the days of the week, the Day of the Moon simply demand variety and adaptability.

  Filcarel woke up realizing that he had some unfinished business. Unpredictably, his main goal for the day was not related to spellcasting or even magic. He had had a dream, and when he awoke the first thing he did was check his

  . Mentally, he summoned forth a small, glowing pebble. A seed stone that didn’t really belong to him.

  Filcarel had always been a kind of prodigy. He had been identified as a talented spellcaster by the time he was eight years old. Before he had his first lesson in magic though, his family knew he was special, because he had a habit of stealing things.

  was not an easy skill for most people to learn, but Filcarel had been a natural. He hadn’t even needed lessons or a tutor to learn it.

  But the surprising thing wasn’t that he’d learned the skill young, or without help, it was that he could

  things that arguably weren’t his. Ordinarily it was considered impossible to store something in your private storage dimension, your

  , if it didn’t belong to you in a very strict sense, but Filcarel had always been able to blur the boundaries of this rule.

  The seed stone that Brosh had given to him was one of these things. He knew because it weighed on his soul. He could feel it there in his

  dragging him down. It was tiny of course, nothing that he couldn’t carry around indefinitely, but it was far, far heavier than it should be. He didn’t like knowing that the universe, or his own soul, whatever it was that decided these things, knew he had stolen from a child.

  He hadn’t taken it intentionally of course, or really stolen it at all. It had just happened! Peasants tended to defer to people of the ruling class as a defense mechanism, and so when he’d said something about it she had assumed that he wanted it. This interaction didn’t say anything good about society in general, or Filcarel’s empathy and lack of awareness, and he felt bad.

  At sunrise the moon was still high, having not strayed far from it’s midnight zenith, as if it was declaring that the day was truly hers. This coincidence fit perfectly with Filcarel’s plan for the day. He needed to solve the mystery of where to find the child Brosh so he could return the seed stone that was rightfully hers.

  The logical place to start looking was at the parlor, because his one lead was her friend Hildagret. Or maybe they hadn’t been friends and it would be a dead end, but there was still an adjacent reason for going there. Brosh wouldn’t have any use for a seed stone, and he, well he wanted to keep it. In theory, someone at the parlor could tell him how much it was worth.

  “Yeah, sure. I buy them in bulk normally though, and the most I’d be willing to pay for an individual stone is five moons, so take it or leave it.” Mireenel scrutinized the stone, he had a jeweler’s loupe that he looked through.

  “I see. This one is larger than most though, and it seems smoother too.” Filcarel pointed out.

  “People argue over whether the size even matters. It’s hard, or maybe impossible to tell the quality of a seed stone by just looking at it.”

  If that was true, why had he made so much of an effort to look at it then? There was certainly some truth to what the proprietor said; the spiritual quality of a stone was not necessarily related to it’s physical appearance. It wasn’t a subject that he knew much about though, and it frustrated him that he wasn’t really learning anything by asking.

  “I only wondered what it might be worth, I didn’t want to actually sell it.”

  “Keep it then.”

  The conversation was over, and it seemed that the annoyance went both ways. Filcarel doubted that five silver was a fair price, but either Mireenel didn’t want the stone, or walking away from the deal was some kind of advanced form of haggling. Was Mireenel the kind of person who would try to take advantage of him with a very low offer?

  Well, Filcarel reasoned, he had a number. And, five silver coins would be a lot to a twelve year old commoner. His next move was to find Hildagret. It seemed too much to hope that she would be there at any random time but as he sat there thinking who he could ask about her, the girl herself walked through the door.

  “Mister Filcarel!”

  “Miss Arshebow.”

  “I knew I’d see you here today! Let’s play a game!”

  “Oh, I don’t play the game, and I don’t like losing to ten year olds.”

  “I’m eleven!”

  “Ok. How about we do something else? What do you know about creating a figure? I was thinking about trying it.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “I know everything about it! First you need a seed stone, or multiple seed stones if you want to make a squad piece, and then you need a blank, but it has to be a special piece of wood or metal from an actual battlefield, not just any random piece. And you glue the two together, and then I can teach you how to do the recruitment, you hold it in your hand and close your eyes and think about three things, and don’t open your eyes. If you do it right you’ll see a kind of mist, like an out of body experience, it’s scary but don’t be scared…”

  “Wow! You really do know a lot. Hey, so I was wondering about your friend that was with you the other day. Do you know how to find her.”

  “You mean Broshy? She doesn’t play the game. Sometimes we play other things though. She’s okay, I guess.”

  “Do you know how to find her?”

  “No, I really don’t know her at all, I just see her sometimes.”

  “Do you know who her parents are?”

  “No, we never talk about that stuff.”

  Hildagret had an adult with her this time just shadowing behind, presumably to keep her out of trouble or from wandering too far. Filcarel looked at this woman for help, but they refused to even make eye contact. Some nobles had the idea that letting your children do what they wanted with as little interference as possible, so that they grew up to be strong and independent. Her minder had probably been instructed to not to do or say anything unless it was an issue of safety.

  “Ok, fine. If you see her can you try to find me?” That seemed like a lot to ask, actually, and Filcarel decided to drop the issue when Hildagret just shrugged unenthusiastically.

  “Fine. I suppose that Mireenel sells the blanks? I have a seed stone already.”

  Hildagret hopped off happily to talk to the owner. He was very polite to the girl, and stopped what he was doing to get an appropriate chip from behind the counter for her. She didn’t pay for it, she just took it, thanked him, and then hopped back to Filcarel. Mireenel saw what was going on, scowled a little bit at Filcarel when Hildagret wouldn’t see, and went to fetch a little jar of glue.

  Hildagret tried to coach him through the process, first of assembling the chip, and then of initiating the recruitment part of the skill. It sounded like she was repeating word for word things that she had been told, for the benefit of Filcarel. He tried to take her seriously despite her age since she was clearly more knowledgeable than he was, but at the same time wished she would stop distracting him.

  To Filcarel’s magical senses were very subtle, and it wasn’t as if you could reverse engineer their effects, since unlike spells they just sort of happened. But he still wanted to observe this one as it worked. The spiritual component of mana was interesting to him, since his fulmanos was not capable of manipulating it.

  The young adept focused intently on the chip as he activated the recruitment function. The child heiress continued talking his ear off, and other patrons of the parlor casually turned their attention to Filcarel’s table, to see what kind of game piece he would receive on his very first attempt. A particular shimmer of magic blossomed forth from the small seed stone first to engulf the rest of the battlefield token, and then with a quick tendril to pierce the mind of the summoner.

  Filcarel found himself suddenly immersed in a thick fog. Around him he could hear the cries of battle, the sound of dying animals, metal striking metal and flesh, a horn sounding a charge or retreat. Suddenly a man stumbled out of the mist to stand before Filcarel’s gaze. It was a halberdier wearing a breastplate and half helm, and as he swung his weapon to face unseen foes he seemed both skilled and brave. Filcarel dismissed him.

  Reflections of souls fallen in battle were being recreated and called forward. Filcarel’s consciousness, now fully immersed in the gestalt of the , was surrounded by spiritual mana, and even though he could not see how it was organized or worked, it fascinated him. Warriors, riders, standard bearers, archers, some brave, some cowardly, young and old were all revealed to him and then reabsorbed.

  Filcarel didn’t know how long the process could take, but he thought there must be some limit. He only knew that he was enjoying the process too much for it to last forever. At some point he would have to choose. He wasn’t looking for any particular kind or quality of fighter, he had simply been trying to learn or experience something new, to fill a gap in his knowledge.

  Then out of the fog stepped a monster of a man. The figure was perhaps seven feet tall and towered above Filcarel’s presence, and he carried an air of intimidation and dominance with him even in death. His armor was scarred and cracked, the legs were black with soot and on his chest the paint that made up his coat of arms was almost completely chipped off. He shouldered a great hammer, something that Filcarel would struggle to even drag across the ground, and swatted angrily at the swirling mists that were curling and grasping like hands in his presence.

  Hildagret had told him ‘don’t try to recruit anything too strong, or you’ll waste the stone’. He had thought that it was advice that didn’t apply to him, something you told children or weak willed enthusiasts. Authority was Filcarel’s strongest attribute and he knew it, but here he felt humbled. He was not worthy of the legend that stood before him, and as if to illustrate the point the massive warrior did not bother waiting to be dismissed, ignoring Filcarel entirely and charging back into thicker mists that engulfed him hungrily.

  Filcarel waited for the next warrior to arrive, but nothing happened except that the fog calmed and reestablished itself across the ground. The sounds of battle began to slow and grow and quiet with distance. It seemed as if the summoning was losing it’s power. This didn’t alarm Filcarel too much, he was happy to see it through to the end. Imagine settling on the first choice you were given, what a waste that would have been, although, to be honest he had liked the stoic halberdier.

  There was some kind of peace here, on the fringes of the ‘battle’ taking place within the fog. Filcarel tried to breath it in, to remember the quality of mana as the skill slipped away from him. He was content, and wondered if people would care about the things he’d seen. Would Hildagret quiz him on every missed selection? No doubt she would have something to say about it.

  Then one last ‘warrior’ shuffled into sight, saving Filcarel the embarrassment of ending the ritual empty handed. The man was old, feeble, or to put it charitably, wizened. A wizard then, wearing long robes, holding himself upright with his lantern-staff, the symbol of his role as adviser to a king. This was a respectable figure, but not the kind of person who belonged on a battlefield. His eyes darted left and right fearfully, with the knowledge that he was the weakest individual involved in a test of strength, a fight to the death.

  Filcarel beckoned him closer, and the mans eyes focused in alarm. ‘Come with me’ Filcarel ordered, and the man bowed his head in submission. A wizard then. So strange. Filcarel wondered what this sage’s story had been, why had he been involved in a war to the point of falling in battle? It was a mystery, one that he would likely never solve.

   pieces did not speak, and they were not real people, they did not have real souls. They were mere copies, used and abused for the entertainment of the game’s players. This whole experience gave Filcarel a new perspective though, and he felt a new appreciation for history, and the real people that were represented in his collection. He wanted to treat this poor geezer with loving respect, like as if he were his own great-grand-uncle.

  “A mage? That’s soooo cool.” Hildagret poked him in the shoulder.

  “Yes a mage. Not a man who deserves being forced into fighting our petty, endless battles.” Filcarel frowned.

  “I know! But, what if you made him fight the DRAGON!?” Hildagret clapped her hands in glee.