From the won awakening stones, Hugh had gotten some new abilities. Of this particular ability, Hugh had thought he’d be using it to teleport allies in and out of danger. While he expected Dave to come up with a wild idea or two about how to use it, he wasn’t expecting what Dave called an ‘artillery barrage’.

  “Yeah, teleportation. It’s just super accurate artillery, right?” said Dave. “Since you can just teleport something that an ally is holding and Johan can easily hold a hundred kilos or so, then together, you two together can put a hundred kilos of explosives anywhere within two kilometres every twenty seconds.”

  Dave looked around at the carefully expressionless faces of his friends. Except for Sam who was smiling with sympathy. The moons shifted rapidly across the daytime sky.

  “That seems very destructive,” said Avril, carefully.

  “It’s supposed to be,” said Dave. “Putting destructive stuff next to my enemies. I like that.”

  “What about levelling up your skills?” said Avril, insistent. “You need to challenge yourself to rank up.”

  “Win first!” squeaked Sam, happily. “Skills later!”

  Avril looked confused.

  “Ahh, perhaps I could lend some clarity,” waffled Hugh through his beard. “You will have been taught, of course, the primacy of levelling abilities?”

  Avril nodded.

  “You need to rank up to maintain the honour of the family and protect the grounds during the monster surge,” said Avril.

  “Dave believes that putting progression first, as you’ve been educated your whole life, kills more adventurers than it’s worth.”

  “But… a bronze rank adventurer is worth ten or more iron ranked -”

  “Those numbers are exactly my point,” said Dave. “Why not go into the monster surge with ten or more iron ranked adventurers instead of one bronze ranked adventurer?” He raised his eyebrows to Avril in challenge. “As you said, together they’re worth a bronze and the best part is that you don’t have to tell any mums and dads about their little baby being ripped apart by ogres in the years leading up. We all win.”

  “But they’re not as good,” insisted Avril. “The lower ranked are too easily overwhelmed. I’m sorry Dave, but you don’t understand. This is something that you need a proper education about.”

  “Oh, I know it, Avril,” said Dave. “That’s why I’m coming up with these little tricks in scavenged mirage chamber time while the crystals are undergoing quality control testing!”

  It briefly rained custard.

  “These little tricks will have to be better,” remarked Avril.

  “They will be,” breathed Sam with her supportive smile. “Remember when you think falling paper will not be so good?”

  Avril’s face twitched at the same time as a pine forest populated itself over distant hills that hadn’t been there five minutes ago. A long row of barns filled with barrels of the strangest substances had manifested at some point in the last hour and Dave had announced he’d use them as target practice. Avril had scoffed and bet that his ‘soft, paper creations’ wouldn’t break even one. The earth-heaving destruction of the first barn under the meteoric impact of a three ton three dart of falling, compressed paper from a mile up had been terrifying.

  “Ah. Yes,” said Avril. “Then, I will withhold judgement until the final build but you’re definitely going to need a faster explosion.”

  “Oh, that’s easily done,” said Hugh with his characteristic whiskery smile. “He could use one of those common anti-theft formations to set off the explosion.”

  “...The ones that go eek?”

  “Ah, yes. Except they won’t be eek, they’ll be going kaboom.”

  “And the explosions will be bigger,” said Dave. “These are just fireballs. Liquid explosions. I’m going to get some dynamite.”

  “What’s that?” asked Avril.

  “Something my university flatmate wrote an assignment about but shouldn’t have,” said Dave, pulling a funny face. “It explodes properly, ripping through stuff with a shockwave.”

  “What’s a shockwave?” asked Sam, all innocence.

  “I can’t say exactly, not my field,” said Dave to the faces of his friends who were increasingly concerned. “It’s like a ripple in the air that can shatter glass or, if powerful enough, shatter humans. A bit like resonating force magic except natural.”

  Avril shuddered.

  “It sounds mighty, Dave,” said Johan with his confident smile. “I can’t wait to see one!”

  “I can wait,” quipped Avril.

  “Come now,” said Johan, all heart. “Don’t you want to see powerful weapons such as what Dave describes holding back the worst of the monster attacks on our strongholds? Think how many lives could be saved?”

  A snow covered cottage manifested a small distance behind Avril.

  “Ahh, but that’s not how she’s been trained to think,” said Dave, a cunning smirk on his lips. “She’s a nob. She’s imagining the weapons I’m trialling and my ambitions to make them more efficient being used on her familial house and it makes her uncomfortable because she knows her father’s enemies would do that if they could.”

  Avrils eyes widened and her face lost all emotion.

  “You can stop the aura defences,” said Dave, rolling his eyes. “I’m not reading you. You’re just not unique. You’re exactly like every other ulta-rich person I’ve ever met. Secretly terrified that your rivals will do to you what you’re happy to do to them.”

  “How dare y-”

  Avril stopped at his condescending raised eyebrow. She looked around at the rest of the team who were looking askance at her and she inwardly cursed. She’d done it again. Hugh had been very patient, explaining everything to her these last weeks. Explained things such as, phrases like ‘how dare you’ were nothing more than proof that the speaker was wrong, the common folk knew it, they always had, and only obeyed after it was uttered because of the implied violence the nobles like her would bring if they didn’t. She’d always been told that it was her noble birth that was being respected by the commoners whose dull minds would forget and need reminding.

  “I take it back,” said Avril calmly, “But I resent the implication that my family is inherently evil.”

  “Indeed, I feel like she has a point there,” said Hugh, casting his whiskery smile from Avril to Dave.

  “Yes! Avril is good Dave,” opined Sam lightly, sending Avril a relieved smile.

  “She’s displaying remarkable restraint,” said Dave who proceeded to bow. “I shall recant my insult and have it refashioned more carefully, under your guidance Avril, so as to only include those deserving of it.”

  “Teamwork makes the dreamwork,” said Avril, smirking as she took one of his phrases for herself.

  “In that spirit,” said Hugh, “I don’t suppose you have any ideas, Avril? About the teleport?”

  “I do actually,” she said.

  The team spent the next ten minutes finding every large object they could in the farmyard that’d been manifested around them halfway through the time in the mirage chamber. After they’d filled up the bulk storage jar that Dave had mysteriously acquired with the objects, the jar was handed to Johan who was teleported straight up about four hundred yards. Under the influence of his slow fall belt, he began drifting down slowly and hurling the contents of the jar at targets they’d drawn in the grass.

  “Nah, Avril, this is working pretty good,” said Dave, shading his eyes against the now erratic sun, following the arc of a barrel of - apparently - butter as it cratered onto one of the target sites.

  “The plough worked better than I thought it would’ve,” remarked Avril.

  “It exploded!” interjected Sam happily.

  “I can only suppose there was some tension in the parts holding the blade,” muttered Hugh.

  “Must’ve been,” said Dave.

  “Was that a barrel of flour?” asked Avril, indicating the latest impact. It’d landed over the butter area.

  “That or some really white sawdust,” muttered Dave, peering at the pale dust cloud with his friends.

  “Just need milk and eggs,” smiled Sam.

  The team chuckled and slapped Sam on the back who was grinning proudly at her joke. A pine forest in the distance caught on fire sending up a plume of grey smoke to the east.

  “Hello, there’s your oven,” chuckled Hugh.

  The laughter redoubled for a moment. Johan soon landed among them and Dave manifested Tome then floated some pens into position, waving his friend's to come together.

  “Okay, we’ve done teleport Johan while he’s charging, Avril while she’s charging and teleport Johan while swinging but the conclusion is that we’re better off teleporting someone who doesn’t get the astral sickness, right?” asked Dave, going over entries in Tome.

  “Nausea before battle is dreadful,” said Johan sadly.

  Avril nodded earnestly.

  “So, maybe teleport me to a good shooting position or Hugh teleports himself in is the best option?”

  “Best option is going to be objects,” said Avril, causing some raised eyebrows. “Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t see it as a killing strategy like you describe, Dave, but having a weighted net teleported over me right before receiving Johan’s charge would be most disruptive.”

  “Good feedback, good feedback,” said Dave, writing it down. Suddenly, Dave’s eyes lit up. “Avril, what about sneezing powder?”

  Avril’s eyes went wide with the same gleam.

  “Oh, that would be so - Oh, but it’d affect us - No, wait. Johan has that air filter. So do you!”

  She looked at Dave with a wide grin.

  “Maybe we all get air filters?” asked Sam, smiling up at her friends.

  “Maybe we do,” said Avril, nodding her head sagely.

  “Well, it’s down as an idea,” said Dave, his pens scratching along Tome. “What of the other things we tried?”

  “Well, I say the falling bundles of arrows was better than falling rocks,” said Hugh, gesturing to their impact zone. “But like Avril said, if we can’t get the timing right we’ll never hit anything moving.”

  “Good enough for attacking a bandit encampment, though?” inquired Dave, his pen hovering.

  “Oh, indeed.”

  “Definitely.”

  “I think so!”

  Johan just nodded grimly.

  “And opinions on the ‘Johan tossing farm equipment at everyone’ strategy?” asked Dave.

  “Oh, simply the best.”

  “Devastating.”

  “I like it!”

  “It is a mighty thing!”

  “Might good, mighty good,” quipped Dave cheekily as he wrote down a positive response. “So, ideas for future tests are bombs that scatter alchemical powders or objects that’ll shatter like that plough and send metal blades scattering in every direction? And perhaps an upgrade to the falling arrows. Perhaps some light javelins or plumbata?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “How would any of you feel about large, falling darts that also scatter alchemical powders or scything blades from their shafts?”

  “We’d feel like we’re a bit worried about your violent imagination,” said Avril. “But go on and do it if you’re determined to chill us in our nightmares.”

  “If it will keep my family safe, I will suffer the nightmares,” said Johan, exuding bravery.

  Dave shook his head in amusement.

  “You people can look at someone shooting flames out of their hands like it’s normal but kinetic bombardment makes you uncomfortable,” said Dave.

  “It’s the lack of magic,” said Avril, wincing. “It’s abnormal. It shouldn’t work that way. Things aren’t supposed to just fall out of the sky and kill you like that.”

  Dave shook his head in disbelief.

  “Alright, time to play with your next ability then, Hugh.”

  Even Dave struggled to find alternative uses for Free Ally. But, he got there.

  “Well, the most notable thing about the ability is that with good aura control, which you have, you can ‘friend’ a foe and cast it on them which normally wouldn’t be useful.”

  Avril, Hugh, Johan, Sam and Tzu were looking with interest at a large diagram Dave was pointing at while he explained. There was a stick figure labelled ‘Johan’ holding his sword and shield next to a barn.

  “You see, it’s that old nugget about the essentialism of the object,” continued Dave. “Basically, if you’re holding something comfortably in your hand or just having it about yourself, magically it counts as yours - part of the magical object that is the individual who is you.” Dave circled the sword and shield and drew lines from them that converged to where he wrote ‘also Johan’. “But, if it suddenly becomes attached to another object that you can’t control, that relationship is disrupted.” Dave carefully folded the paper so that the shield touched the wall of the barn. “That particular object is no longer part of the magical object that is you.” Dave waved his hand over the line from the shield to ‘also Johan’, erasing it and drew a new line to where he wrote ‘barn’.

  “Therefore,” concluded Dave. “Free Ally can be used as a disarm, maybe even a disrobe, spell if we can attach a very large object to another object that our enemies are holding.”

  “Except, how do we do that?” asked Avril, biting her lip below her furrowed brow.

  “Well, I suppose there’s various ways,” muttered Hugh. “King’s glue would work, of course.”

  “How you going to convince someone mid-battle to cover their own shield in king’s glue?” said Avril, still sceptical.

  “We put the glue on a large weight,” said Dave, “and Johan slaps the weight onto his enemy’s shield. Although, any one of us could do the same trick with one of those pet carrier dimensional spaces to pull out a pre-prepared object but if we miss we’ll probably have a quarter-tonne, king-glued chunk of pig iron stuck to the ground.”

  “Alright, let's do it. I have some king’s glue,” said Avril, reaching for her belt.

  “And I want to see if this works,” said Johan, manifesting his shield on his arm and leading the party towards the closest barn.

  Over the next ten minutes they tested every combination Dave had suggested and more. They all worked. It was like a cheat code. Attach a heavy thing to someone’s sword, shield, armour, belt or whatever and it wouldn’t count as part of them anymore. With that in place, a bit of aura control on the part of Hugh, a single cast of Free Ally and another piece of adventuring equipment liberated itself from one of the team onto the wall of the barn.

  “Well, I say, the theory is definitely well established,” said Hugh, pushing experimentally against the backplate and breastplate that was still hanging there.

  “Yes, I didn’t think that’d come off,” said Avril, nodding at the breastplate Hugh was toying with.

  “Me neither,” said Dave, distinctly missing his body armour. “And, now I think I need to build an enormous electromagnet.” His friends looked at him. “A magnet, powered by electricity. They can be strong enough to pick up cars. Carriages, sorry.”

  They all paused to consider Dave’s words.

  “Yes, that’d do it.” said Avril.

  “Shall we move onto your last new ability?” asked Dave, looking at Hugh.

  “Oh, I don’t see why not,” said Hugh, smiling through his beard.

  “Ooh, so many!” said Sam with wide, appreciative eyes.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “It’s a complex ability to be sure,” said Avril distractedly as she went into the detailed information displayed on Tome, trying to make sense of it.

  “Forget it, Avril,” said Dave. “I spent an hour last night trying to figure it out. I think this is one of those things where it’ll make sense after we see it. Hugh!? Fire it up, mate!”

  Hugh was standing ten metres away next to another barn which they’d drawn a target on the wall with some jam they’d found. He was preparing to go through his Mix Elements abilities in order of the description. The trees in the background changed species, colour and shape at odd moments but that was neither here nor there. The problem with the first ability, Steamcloud, was that they didn’t know how much or over what surface area. Was this just some haze? Or a boiler explosion? They were about to find out.

  “Alright!” called Hugh. “Well, I’m indeed… doing it now!”

  Hugh took to water form, raised his hand, closed his eyes and activated his ability.

  CRACK!

  “By the lady!” blurted Hugh, shaking his watery hand and proceeding to cast Heal on himself..

  Everyone else on the team had jumped.

  “Ooh! I get it now,” said Avril. “It’s like a smith starts quenching glowing iron in water.”

  Dave groaned with her in revelation, suddenly making sense of the detailed information.

  “It hurt me!” said Hugh. “I didn’t think it was supposed to hurt me?”

  “No, no, no,” instructed Avril. “This was confusing in the text. You are protected from the heat of the initial blast but because you’re not in fire form and, as such, not protected from the heat that comes out of the initial blast.”

  “Yeah, it’s highly directional,” said Dave. “That’s why the words were so difficult to understand. Lots of geography words on top of other geography words. Doesn’t matter, extend your hand and do it at the tip of your middle finger. That should work.”

  Avril backed Dave’s words up with approving gestures and nodding. Hugh tentatively extended his arm.

  Crack!

  Hugh winced and withdrew his arm but didn’t shake his hand with pain and soon smiled at his friends. The noise hadn’t been as big - he’d invested less mana into this one - but he’d not been hurt this time. Sam clapped and beamed her happiness at him and the others followed suit.

  “That felt a lot better,” said Hugh, his confidence returning. “Hang on, I’ll try a longer blast.”

  “Stronger too,” interjected Dave.

  Hugh nodded and extended his hand.

  CRACK-KHSSSSSSSSS!

  The initial explosion of the superheated water was followed by a continuing hissing expulsion of visible steam from the area in front of Hugh’s fingers that misted and warped the air. The group cheered for Hugh, who looked abashed but pleased.

  “Okay, do it on me,” said Dave.

  The maintenance team said they switched on god-mode so their injuries wouldn’t decrease their health and couldn’t hurt beyond a nasty sting.

  Hugh put his hand on Dave’s chest and activated his ability.

  CRACK!

  “YEEOOW!” howled Dave, stepping backwards and screwing up his face against the pain. He gingerly removed his tunic to reveal the already red flesh beneath. “Oh! That is mean!” The flesh was already turning to normal and Dave warily probed the edges of the affected area with his fingers. “Yeah, that’s going to be a good compliment to any wrestling you can do. Just steam-clean your opponent’s skin.”

  “We know what it’s used for now,” said Johan, nodding as sagely as his youthful personality could allow. “The heat of the steam causes damage that you can channel into your enemies.”

  “But it’s wet… fire damage?” asked Avril.

  “More safe, won’t start fires,” smiled Sam.

  “Hang on, I have an idea,” said Dave.

  Everyone rolled their eyes. A minute later, Hugh had his finger firm against one end of a sturdy, cardboard straw.

  “And I just…” said Hugh, looking at Dave, confused.

  “Yep, right in front of your finger before the wad,” said Dave.

  There was a muffled crack and a wet wad of paper flew out of the far end of the straw and smacked sharply into Dave’s neck.

  “Argh!”

  “Cor!”

  “Lady!”

  “Hey, it worked!”

  Sam’s hands flew to her mouth. The initial reactions over, everyone had a bout of nervous laughter except Dave.

  “Why’d you point it at me!?” asked Dave in dismay.

  Hugh’s mouth moved without articulating sounds and he gestured around in a way that suggested he had no idea what he was doing.

  “You alright?” chuckled Sam, giving Dave’s arm a gentle pat.

  “I’m fine,” said Dave, shaking his head and smiling. “I just wasn’t expecting Hugh to last minute point the pea shooter straight at me after I’d just finished explaining its function.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” muttered Hugh sheepishly.

  “Well, be sorry by scaling it up,” said Dave. “Johan, Adventurer’s Tools us up some metal pipes of different diameters. About two feet long. Avril, could you please nip over to the impact zone of that crate of tubers and bring us back a few that’ll fit into the pipes?”

  Both adventurers nodded and did as Dave asked while Dave explained how a potato gun worked. Not a minute later, Hugh was pointing a one-inch diameter pipe directly at the side of a barn with his hand forming a seal over the back of the pipe.

  “Alright, I’m going to do it!” warned Hugh.

  CRACK! Came the muffled ability almost simultaneously with a thump sound of the potato leaving the pipe at considerable speed. Unfortunately, Hugh had lowered the pipe immediately prior to activating the ability. The potato piece bounced off the ground, off the barn wall and smacked solidly into Avril’s chest.

  “Hey!” protested Avril loudly, glaring at Hugh.

  “Sorry! Sorry,” said Hugh.

  “Twice in a row? At the last second?” asked Dave, looking at Hugh in wonderment. “How do you do that?”

  “Natural accuracy,” sang Sam, grinning.

  “I don’t - I didn’t mean - terribly sorry,” blustered Hugh, blushing.

  “Let’s just aim into the field,” said Dave, indicating the field that’d been grass, heather and sand dunes over the course of the last hour. “See how big of an object you can shoot out.”

  It turned out, after a little experimentation with materials, Hugh could propel about a three pound projectile up to about two hundred yards.

  “So, we’re all thinking impact grenades, yeah?” said Dave.

  “I am now,” said Avril.

  “Sorry, what?” asked Hugh mildly.

  “He wants you to shoot a grenade out of the tube that explodes when it hits the ground,” said Avril.

  “What if it explodes in the tube,” said Hugh with an expression that was remembering the time Johan had tried to throw one of Dave’s incendiary grenades that he called ‘Molotov cocktails’ too hard.

  “Well, I expect he’ll have to think of a way to avoid that, won’t you Dave?” said Avril coyly.

  “Yes,” said Dave with a fake smile that fooled nobody.

  Hugh scowled.

  They’d been curious about the fire and air combination, especially since it’d been described as internal. The moment Hugh first tried it with his hands and shot himself backwards a little way down the street, everyone had figured it out and Dave suggested Hugh projecting his ‘jet engine’ through his feet instead.

  Projecting it through his feet, Hugh shot into the air like an errant party balloon on a desperate bid for freedom. He started spiralling and turned off the ability before he passed out, air walking back to his friends holding his head and muttering mournfully to himself. As the minutes ticked by and the maintenance crew checked the environmental colour settings, Hugh got the hang of his new ability and was thoroughly enjoying flying. Something that iron rank powers rarely allowed, especially for such low mana per second.

  “Huh, your cheap cost is because your flight is the combination of two abilities,” said Dave, looking into the mechanics of the ability. “In flesh form, the thrust could only help you move faster on the ground but in fire and air forms you’re lighter and the forms also amplify the jet propulsion so you can fly quite well.”

  “Bless the goddess but this is fun,” said Hugh, smiling almost as wide as Sam. “I suppose you’re going to spoil it all and think of ways to kill things with it.”

  “Nah,” said Dave wryly. “We can just use all the things we’ve already thought of and have you deliver them quicker now. So, you have fun!”

  Hugh chuckled and did a barrel roll.

  Sam sidled over to Dave while Avril and Johan called ariel trick requests to Hugh and whispered in Dave’s ear.

  “You didn’t say he can burn people while he takes off.”

  “He’ll figure it out,” said Dave, smiling at Hugh.

  Sam grinned with mirth up at Dave.

  Maintenance informed the party they were switching to night time tests soon so they skipped ahead to testing the water and air combination next. As they thought, it produced a cloud of fog. Good for breaking line of sight but, as they discovered, also greatly increased the potency of Sam’s mist walker familiar. It was a pretty straightforward ability that didn’t have any hidden mechanics even for Dave to find so they moved on.

  Thinking the description of the air and earth combination might be best seen with the remaining light, they did that next. They discovered that it basically injected air or transformed the air in the dirt along a small line or to a small radius, or vice versa; injecting earth into or transforming the air into earth. The consistency of the creation was brittle and crumbly, like the softest of loam or the most fragile of pumice, and would easily fall over or even be walked through. Although it only worked on natural soil, not rocks or metal, they all immediately saw the utility of throwing out a sinkhole as an area control ability and, with Sam’s demonstration, also quickly saw how bracing a spear on the other side of the brittle, rock wall would skewer a pursuer.

  With the sun yanked out of the sky and an OOPS SORRY I DIDN’T WARN YOU from the maintenance technicians, the team moved onto the last two abilities in the now cool, night air. They really tried to get the fire and earth combination to do something other than be a summoned mound of unbearably hot gravel but that’s what it did. A good control ability - it was hot enough to burn the skin but it’d take extended contact to do real damage. Thanks to Dave’s UI they learned quite quickly that it had a secondary effect: It radiated enough heat that even being near it drained stamina.

  “Well, that’s pretty good,” said Dave, nodding seriously and looking at his friends. “If any other group tries to hunker down behind fortifications, chain-casting this will get them to move. It’s slow area control, but unless they have some ability to put it out, it’s pretty sure area control.”

  “Indeed, I believe you said, Dave, that perhaps snuffing out flames might be a use for the last ability?” said Hugh. “Despite it clearly reading as movement hindrance in the text?”

  “It is both!” chirped Sam brightly. “Try, Hugh, try!”

  She gestured enthusiastically at the heat mound, as they’d begun calling it, and stood back.

  “Well, I suppose why not?” said Hugh.

  He extended his hand towards the heat mound and activated the water and earth combination, turning the area into knee deep mud.

  “That’ll slow a villain down,” said Johan, nodding respectfully. “You know, I almost lost my boots in the river when I was a boy? You’ve got to respect mud.”

  “Well, let’s test it out,” said Dave, rapping Johan on his armoured chest with his knuckle.

  Johan waded into the knee-deep mud, his Strong As A Grazer strength allowed him to slosh through the area with ease. Dave, however, sank into the thick, clinging muck, his pace slowing to a crawl.

  “Oh, wow,” said Dave. “It’s quite runny up top but gets thicker and more gluggy as it’s deeper. Hang on, I’m taking off my shoes before I lose them.”

  Dave paused for a moment, taking off his footwear in his UI, and then continued trying to walk. A second later, he stopped trying to push his feet through and adopted an out-and-in-again gait through the mud.

  “Yep!” he continued. “This is the best way to walk through it. Yeah, anybody who gets stuck in this is going to struggle to leave. Pretty good ability!”

  He paused for a moment, dipping his hands into the mud.

  “And it’s warm! From the heat mound.”

  “Ah, warm but cool enough to snuff out a fire though,” said Hugh, coming to the edge and reaching out to help Dave.

  “No, no, no!” said Dave, waving away the help Hugh was offering to get out. “It’s actually quite nice.”

  “The mud?” asked Avril, incredulously.

  “Yeah!” said Dave, using his inventory to remove his armour and most of his clothing then experimentally sitting down in the warm mud. “Now that I’m in, it’s pleasantly warm and it feels kind of nice.”

  Hugh experimentally dipped a foot in.

  “Oh, Goddess, yes that’s lovely.”

  He cast off his habit and lowered himself into the mud with Dave.

  “Can you believe -” began Avril, turning to the other two and interrupting herself in shock.

  Johan and Sam were in the process of disrobing.

  “Mother said I should be bold,” said Johan defensively. “And try new things.”

  Sam just grinned happily up at Avril and, stripped to her undergarments, jumped in, giggling.

  “I swear, it’s like every time you four try to prove my education wrong about peasants you turn around and - Oh! No, I get it,” said Avril. She’d disdainfully dipped her hand in and then changed her mind.

  She began disrobing and Dave cleaned her hand with Grand Mage’s Gravitas so she could strip down to her under clothes with more dexterity.

  “Feels like a warm hug from the earth,” said Sam as Avril lowered herself into the mud. Although mud it wasn’t a foul, rotten mixture. It was a viscous clay with a pleasant texture.

  “Yes,” said Avril, luxuriating in the feeling. The heat of the clay was soothing and penetrated deeply into her muscles. “Dirty but undeniably pleasant.”

  “Eh,” grunted Dave, standing up. “I can clean, bathing in water exists and these aren’t even our real bodies.”

  He reached into his dimensional space at his waist and passed a cold beer to everyone before sitting back into the warm mud.

  “We've been at this a while and it’s a good moment to relax and see what our abilities can do in the dark,” said Dave. He punctuated the point by casting one of his illusion spells above them. He’d tried to make falling stars appear in the sky but the illusory pigments of Maestro’s Instant Image Of Many Forms couldn’t produce their own light.

  “And what they can’t do,” said Avril, raising her beer to Dave.

  “To limitations!” said Dave, raising his bottle in a toast.

  “To helping people!” sang Sam, raising hers.

  “To honour and glory,” said the golden voice of Johan, also raising his beer.

  “To learning and Knowledge,” said Hugh.

  The bottles clinked together and the team drank as strange lights blazed on and off in the sky of the mirage chamber and, from the comfort of a warm mud bath, each of them toyed and experimented with their essence abilities in the dark.

  Serge was feeling the best he’d felt in years. A deck beneath his feet, a crisp wind on his face and he was captain of the ship. He hated it.

  No. He hated himself. He didn’t deserve any of it. Not with what he’d done. His hands shook and his breath shuddered. Serge distracted himself, staring at the fire away on the earth his crew was gathered around, smoking and drinking. Drinking.

  He stared thirstily down at their silhouettes. Drinking. That sweet stupor denied to him thanks to that gods damned, thrice cursed, blundering barnacle of a boy and his mate who’d betrayed him! ‘Detective’ Booker. Ha! Stupid name.

  “Stewing in dark thoughts, Captain?”

  Serge jumped. It was Booker. Slithering serpent of a youth had a quiet step for a landlubber.

  “Is that against that safety hierarchy of yours too?” he asked in a deliberately surly tone.

  “Alas, no,” said the smirking dandy. “Be as sullen as you please. Whatever makes you happy, Captain.”

  “Happy?” growled Serge, incensed. “What do you mean, happy?”

  “The… emotion of happiness?” said Booker, mocking Serge with his confusion.

  “How am I supposed to be happy around here, hey?” seethed Serge. “You! You yellow bellied son of a trog, you just can’t help yourself, can you?”

  He tried to stop himself from chewing out this sea-louse of an excuse for a man who was, against all good sense before the gods, his ship’s owner and his employer but he couldn’t stop. The anger had a momentum that his sense couldn’t stop.

  “You put your fingers in everything,” raged Serge, wiggling his appendages at Booker. “I discipline my crew, you call me into a ‘meeting’, we show the new hands the ropes and, oh! Guess what? Another ‘meeting’. Cuckold on me own ship! In front of the crew! A laughing stock! Why don’t you just fly your real colours and cut my balls off to carry around in that magic belt pouch of yours, eh?”

  The blistering rodent had the nerve - the nerve - to pull a face with raised eyebrows like he was considering it. Serge felt his insides boiling and thundered on.

  “You’re always there. Watching. Just watching with your ratty, little eyes! You and the mate! Thundering typhoons, you don’t think I see the two of you conspiring against me? I don’t even know why I’m here half the time. You and the mate getting all those clips put up all over the place, those little latches, all behind my back, the crew smirking at me. Let me run my own damn ship!”

  He stomped closer to the unmoving prat, his wooden leg loud upon the deck.

  “Except it’s not my ship, is it?” growled Serge fiercely. “And you remind me every. Single. Day. And to top it all off, TO BLOODY TOP IT OFF! I can’t even have the mercy - the sweet, gods-given mercy of a good, cold drink upon my lips to wash away the cares of the day and relax.”

  The sallow-cheeked youth just cocked his head to the side like some mangy dog and was silent for a few long breaths, deep in thought. Serge thought about slapping him across the face but he’d seen the boy training. The lad had a knack for inexplicably holding people immobile with no apparent effort.

  “Tell me, Captain,” said Booker in that calm, calculated tone of his. “When was the last time you actually drank to relax? Not some other reason?”

  Serge’s temper flared but the boy’s calm presence seemed to grow in stature. Fucking essence training. He cursed. Of all the things he’d said for the boy to have issue with, he’d brought up that? He hated the boy more and once over again because he knew it was true. He hadn’t drank to relax since before… that time. The accident.

  “Still, I’m glad you’ve finally aired grievances,” continued the automaton. “No more of this ‘yes sir, no sir, nothing wrong sir’ nonsense you normally give me in our meetings.”

  Serge reddened. What was he supposed to say in front of the ship’s owner? Tell them everything that went wrong? Give them the excuse they needed to take your ship away from you? The jackals!

  “I’d address them but I know for a fact that this is one of the easiest ships the crew have ever worked,” said the bean counter. “So, the problem is you.”

  “Me, eh?” said Serge, reddening in anger. “How do we know it isn’t you and all your soft, milque-toast interfering with the on board discipline?”

  “Employee feedback meetings,” said the little prick flatly.

  Serge’s anger didn’t have a response to that.

  “Forms!” spat Serge, changing tack with the wind of the argument. “Meetings! What would you know about running a crew? Keeping the men in line? Have you ever had to keep a wallowing wreck afloat during a squall in a storm? The crew has to be hard! Tough! Not one man among them can flinch from their duty! Not one! Or we all go down!”

  “Do you know what a chirurgeon is, Captain?” said Booker, like an unexpected sand bank of words in the path of Serge’s rage.

  “Some kind of… kill-or-cure healer for the worst ailments,” said Serge. “I met someone in a bar once with a little, onyx knife who said they were a chirurgeon. Couldn’t hold her beer though.”

  “They cut people open to heal the ailments inside,” said Booker. “They’re common in negation zones like where I’m from.”

  Serge stayed silent, in the face of this unholy madness.

  “But as with all acts of mortal hands,” continued the detective, “there are errors in the process. Chirurgy on the wrong body part or on the right body part but wrong procedure. That kind of thing, you know? Honest to the soul mix-ups.”

  “Sounds stupid,” grumbled Serge.

  “It was,” agreed Booker. “Because it took many, many years to implement the simple solution of just writing on the skin before the surgery. Stupid right? But it took all those smart healers hundreds of years to start site-marking as a regular practice.”

  “You can’t compare me to a thundering Chirurgeon, Booker! They -”

  “Captain, you are in a highly experimental flying machine.”

  Serge didn’t have an answer to that and so he hated Booker even more to compensate.

  “Perhaps more relatable to you is machine guarding? There’s a little of it downstairs on the steering mechanisms,” said Booker, raising his eyebrows.

  “Bah! Everyone knows not to touch anything to do with the tiller!” said Serge dismissively.

  “Everyone has known that for centuries, Captain, any yet, the injuries persist, do they not?”

  Serge didn’t answer and returned to hating the over-informed prig.

  “Just think, Captain, a few well-placed bits of tin and someone, somewhere will never have their hand crushed and live a life of poverty. With widespread adoption of the safety measures it adds up to thousands of happy, healthy lives. No visits to penny pinching healers, no families spending their child’s essence fund on silver-ranked healing so they can make it through the next winter. Is that worth a bit of harmless tin put over the tiller?”

  “Bah! You’re making a storm out of some wind there,” said Serge, turning his back on Booker.

  “You say that yet somehow,” said the detective with a smirk that Serge could practically hear, “I don’t think you’ll even try to sell that opinion to the crew.”

  Serge fumed.

  “You don’t actually care about my hierarchy of control safety procedures, do you?” said Booker, smirk still infuriatingly audible. How did the lily-livered mongrel know when he was right?

  “Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me all about myself, Detective Answers?” said Serge, turning to roll his eyes at Booker.

  “Okay,” said the weed with a shrug, using that word that was unique to the outlander’s dialect. “You’re brooding in your dark thoughts because you’re jealous of your crew getting shit-faced and you watching - or even knowing about them getting shitfaced makes you feel bad because it makes you think about the reason that you drink.”

  Serge spun, slapped Booker hard across the face and glared at the uppity popinjay. Booker turned his head with the blow and looked triumphantly back at him.

  “You, of course, realise that slap is the equivalent of a confession, right?”

  He launched himself at the traitorous rat with a roar to the same effect as last time. The skilled, little bastard ducked underneath his arms, took Serge around the waist in an eyeblink and casually swept his pegleg out, causing Serge to gently fall to the deck in the control of the outlander’s hold.

  “You think you’re the only alcoholic the world has ever seen?” said Booker, his voice right next to Serge’s ear, boring into him. “Or that your miserable life is an original story?”

  “Shove off,” growled Serge back.

  “No,” said Booker smugly, lying half-on Serge, retaining his hold on Serge’s arms. “Actually, we’re going to have a little chat about how you lost your leg.”

  Serge said nothing so Booker continued.

  “It’s no secret. You can ask around the drinking holes frequented by sailors anywhere in Francalbia to get the general layout of the story.”

  Booker popped to his feet, releasing Serge and started leaning on the railing like they were having a friendly chat.

  “Hotshot young sailor, saves an idiot noble by sailing out a storm in a pleasure craft, becomes a hero. You were on top of the world, invited to all the parties. Then tragedy; the accident happened. A young noblewoman died, you lost your leg and nobody wanted anything to do with you. After that, you just crawled into a bottle and never came out.”

  Serge made his ungainly way upright, glaring at Booker the whole time, leaning against the forward mast.

  “It’s a tragedy played out by somebody in every generation,” continued Booker in a bored voice. “Young man does something exceptional, gains notoriety, riches, women, et cetera. He parties too hard, gets addicted to something and falls from grace, driving away everyone around him.” The detective nodded seriously for a moment with a far away look on his face. “Yep, usually happens to athletes where I’m from.”

  The night was silent for a while save the noises of the ship at anchor.

  “It goes like that does it?” grunted Serge, looking away.

  “You tell me,” said Booker with a shrug. “The stories speculate wildly about the fine details and about your own internal monologue but I’m pretty sure the broad brush strokes are accurate.”

  Serge stomped the two steps to the railings to lean on them next to Booker. He thought about pushing the little prig overboard, but didn’t.

  “And that’s what everyone knows, is it?” he asked.

  “Anybody who cares to find out whatever came of that promising, young lad they remember all those years ago,” said Booker.

  “He crawled into a bottle and never came back out,” said Serge flatly, staring down at the bonfire where his crew was still drinking and swapping tales.

  “Yes, but did that come before or after the accident?” asked Booker, who took a teapot and cup from his inventory space, filled up a cup with a steaming, black liquid and passed it to Serge.

  The drink had a bold, toasty aroma. He took a sip. It was nutty, strong, bitter and quite unpleasant. Good. He liked it.

  “Before,” said Serge, focusing on the drink. He took a bigger sip and swirled it around his mouth, making sure every tastebud got a hit of the hearty, bitterness. It was the kind of horrible that he could enjoy. He deserved this.

  Booker took another cup out of his pocket space and poured himself some of the drink too. Serge noted with some approval that the snooty lady didn’t shame himself by adding any milk or sugar to take the manly edge off the taste.

  “So, you get on the booze because you’re going to all the parties,” said Booker, taking a measured sip. Serge noticed him wincing at the bitterness but letting the drink linger in his mouth, truly tasting the drink properly despite himself. Good. The lad deserved some bitterness. Let him taste it.

  “But the booze makes you bad at your job,” continued the lad. “Or, just reckless - it doesn’t matter - you have your accident and then you keep drinking. Partly because it’s a habit, mostly because you want to forget, right?”

  “I still want to forget,” muttered Serge, tipping a great, steaming gulp of black liquid into his mouth and slowly swallowing, letting the bitter taste hit his tongue, the robust, nutty, kind of unpleasant flavour fill his mouth and the dry, cotton aftertaste linger. Yes. Good.

  “But then your life starts falling apart and you move on from drinking to forget the accident to drinking to forget that you’re sad and eventually, you’re drinking to forget that you’re ashamed of being a drunk.”

  “Sounds like you know everything about me,” said Serge dryly, giving the poncy lad a surly look and holding his now empty cup towards Booker.

  “Not you specifically,” said Booker, taking out the teapot and refilling Serge’s cup with the horrible liquid. “I just know the shape of the story. I don’t even really need you to colour in the details if it’ll upset you.”

  “How kind,” said Serge through a glare and a clenched jaw.

  “But I do need you to stop acting like you’re a special, tragic boy the gods have picked out for special punishment,” said Booker. The words were delivered flat and simply but they went into Serge’s head like blows of a smith’s hammer. “Everyone’s fucked up, Captain. Everyone.”

  Serge turned to the young detective to say something defensive but the words died on his lips. The look in the lad’s eyes said he could back it up. Like he had seen into the realms of banished gods and returned. Serge took a tip of the perfectly awful drink.

  “You can’t be much more than twenty winters,” he said. “What do you know about the gods fucking your life?”

  The lad took a long draw on his cup of awfulness, savouring the taste before answering.

  “I’ve killed people because I delayed potions due to quality concerns about the alchemy. I’ve walked through the kid’s cancer ward at the healer’s temple. The magic-resistant stuff, you know? Seen their smiles and then had to snuff out their hope because the person who’d been selling them a cure had faked their data,” the lad talked with a far away look in his eye, a leaden tone in his voice. And regret. “I stood by while those above me did a cost-benefit analysis on thousands of lives. Not because of any concern for a lack of resources, no. Because, they wanted their annual bonus of more coins than the people they could have cured would ever hope to see. I watched those people use the fruits of my work to decide who lives and who dies but worst of all, I had to watch how easily they ignored the lives, took the money and congratulated themselves on a job well done before throwing me away.”

  Booker took another respectable sip of the drink and stared down at the bonfire with Serge, watching the silhouettes sing, dance or play cards around a table by its flickering light.

  “Alright, Booker. So, we’re all fucked up,” said Serge. “What of it?”

  “Well,” said the lad, coming out of his reverie and fixing his sharp eyes on Serge, “we unfuck ourselves, Captain Dimont. The world breaks us down and we have to put ourselves back together. But, you’ve spent about two decades crying to yourself instead. Tell me, what gives you the fucking right?”

  Serge blanched at the challenge in Booker’s tone and angrily took a sip of the hot brew, calming himself.

  “Don’t answer,” said the lad, which was helpful because Serge didn’t have one. “But what gives you the right to avoid putting yourself back together like everyone else has to? Pretty much everyone in this crew has lost a family member during a surge. Hell, some of them have probably lost kids! Can you imagine that? Burying your own child?”

  The lad shook his head while exhaling heavily and Serge took a mouthful of bitter fluid while thinking about it himself. He found he couldn’t imagine but he could imagine that it must feel pretty thundering bad.

  “So, everyone else has tragedy in their lives and has to work past it but Captain Serge Dimont gets to brood about his accident until the end of time? Vomiting on himself and shitting his own pants the whole while?” Booker gave him a savage look. “Nah, fuck that. Captain Dimont can bloody well put himself back together like everyone else.”

  “You’re saying I’m a coward, Booker?” said Serge quietly.

  “I think a brave man can shirk his duty,” answered Booker without flinching.

  “That he can, that he can,” admitted Serge, taking another gulp of wonderful, liquid regret to empty the cup again.

  He’d never really considered it like this before. He’d made sure he’d not been sober enough to consider anything.

  “Arr, I’ll make sure to avoid vomiting on myself and shitting my pants,” said Serge, getting another refill from the blistering dandy. He glared at the lad. “No guarantees I won’t vomit on you instead, boy.”

  “Or shit in my pants?” asked Booker sardonically.

  “No guarantees,” said Serge, taking another sip of that wonder-drink that curled the tongue.

  “Fair enough. I am at your disposal, Captain,” said Booker with a mock bow.

  Serge watched as Booker refilled his own recently empty cup from the teapot.

  “In that case, Booker, I’d like to know what this drink is,” said Serge, yet again, savouring every aspect of a sip from the sudden bitterness or the start to the unpleasant, dry aftertaste.

  “Roasted dandelion roots with redbush and a dash of salt,” said Booker, wrinkling his face against the taste as he took a long sip. “I thought you’d like it. It’s the perfect drink to compliment an unpleasant conversation, don’t you think?”

  “Aye, more than that, Booker, more than that,” said Serge, taking in a deep breath of the robust aroma before another appreciative sip of the perfect bitterness. “It’s the perfect drink to sum up life.”