Victor of Tucson

It turned out that Fregasius was some sort of being of magic and shadow, fully enveloped by dark robes and a hooded cloak. Victor could see two pale, dim orbs in the depths of the hood that must have been his eyes, but he never spoke in the short time Victor spent with him. When the flitting magical bird chirped into his ear, Fregasius stepped onto a rune-inscribed silver disc about eight feet in diameter and beckoned for Victor to follow. As soon as he set foot upon it, the disk flared with blue Energy, and the next thing Victor knew, he was standing in front of the inn where he and his companions had rented rooms.

“Shit,” he muttered, completely taken off guard. When he’d seen the disc, he thought it might be some kind of flying platform, not a teleportation platform! Outside the inn, pedestrian traffic was light, but plenty of people were going about their evening business, and they gave him a bit of a wide berth, likely due to his sudden appearance, not because of any threat they felt. Victor made a fist with his right hand and looked at Ranish Dar’s signet ring. It was cool, he supposed, to have it, but it also rankled something in him, almost like Dar was laying claim to his property. He shook his head and lowered his fist.

“No point crying about it now.” He appreciated the comfort Lifedrinker’s harness gave him, holding her out of the way on his back, but he also missed resting his hand on her silvery axe head when he spoke to himself; it made it easier to shrug off any concern about how his muttered dialogue made him look to any casual observers. Sighing, he turned and made his way up to the room he shared with Valla. When he arrived, he found a note pinned to the door with a silver hairpin:

V,

We’re in Lam’s room. Come see us when you’re back!

-V

Victor chuckled at the note from V to V, then turned and walked down the hall until he came to Lam’s door. The handle was locked, but when he knocked on the wood, it opened in just a few seconds, revealing Valla’s hopeful face. When she saw him, she pulled it wide and veritably jumped into his arms, squeezing him around the neck. “We were worried Ranish had duplicitous motives for sending us off without you.”

“Nah. He’s a serious guy, but I think he shoots pretty straight.” When she let go of his neck, he handed her the hairpin he’d pulled from their door. “I’m saving that note. Might get it made into a tattoo,” he said, pulling her a little closer to kiss her gently on the forehead. “Well?” he asked, pulling back. “How is she?”

Valla’s smile fell away, and she whispered, “Inconsolable! She’s only level seven now! Also, she broke into a sobbing fit when she found out you’d agreed to be Ranish Dar’s apprentice in exchange for helping her. You should speak to her.”

Victor groaned, shaking his head. He’d hoped Edeya would only lose a single tier at most, dropping down into the twenties from her recent acquisition of level thirty. “All right.” He stepped into the room, and Valla closed the door with a solid thunk. He could hear women’s voices from the bedroom and walked that way.

Valla didn’t follow him. “I’ll wait out here. Tell Lam I need something from her.” When Victor looked at her with a raised eyebrow, she added, “You need to speak to her alone.”

“Sheesh. Why do I feel like I’m going into an arena fight?”

She chuckled, squinting at him. “Be brave! You’ll be fine.”

Victor looked at her for a long second, savoring every detail, from her narrowed, amused eyes to the gleam of reflected light on her wings. Then, he nodded and went into the bedroom, where he found Lam sitting on the side of the bed beside a blanket-covered Edeya. They were speaking quietly, but he picked up a snippet of Edeya’s last words, muttered in a bitter tone.

“. . . forward to going back to the Blue Deep and hunting forest Yeksa trying to get my Class again.” When her eyes fell on Victor, though, they opened wide, and she threw her blanket off and tried to climb out of bed. Lam restrained her, pressing on her shoulder, apparently easily holding her down. In frustration, Edeya cried, “Let me up! I just want to hug him!” Lam relented, sighing and shaking her head.

“You need to rest . . .” Despite her words, she trailed off and smiled when she saw how furiously Edeya charged over the soft gray carpet to slam into Victor. He laughed and gently pressed her close, trying not to ruffle her delicate dragonfly wings. They flared brightly, shimmering with sparkling blue Energy, dripping motes that fell at their feet, forming a misty cloud around their ankles.

“Hey, hey,” he said softly. “You’re squeezing me like I’m going off to prison. I’m not going anywhere.” She kept squeezing, and Victor laughed, “Jeez, you’re going to break my ribs!” The truth was, he could hardly feel the pressure, but he could see her straining and didn’t want to highlight her lack of strength. “Damn! Look at the Energy pouring out of those wings! Are they always like that?”

“It’s enhanced by emotion,” Lam answered for her.

Edeya finally spoke, loosening her hold on him, “Thank you, Victor. Thank you so much! Lam told me everything. I . . . I’m starting to remember that night. Just flashes of horrible things . . . that woman’s evil laugh!” She shuddered against him and, frustrated with his inability to look her in the face, Victor channeled some Energy into his Alter Self Spell, reducing his size further, down to something like six feet so that he could hold her at arm’s length and peer into her beautiful blue, faintly-glowing eyes.

“Don’t think about that shit, all right? Those assholes are dead or gone, and they’ll never get anywhere near you again.”

“She’s still out there, Victor. I . . .” Again, she stammered, but she forced herself to soldier on, completing the thought with wide eyes, staring into Victor’s soul. “I have faint memories, like glimpses of a dream. She spoke to me in my prison, whispered terrible promises . . .”

“Dammit! Stop giving that bruja power. She can’t touch you now. She’s a trillion miles away, and there’s no one in her whole fucking world who can get to you here.” He gently nudged her toward the bed and helped her back into her spot. Lam stood and pulled the blanket back over her, and then Victor said, “Um, Lam, Valla wanted to speak to you.”

“Oh?” She narrowed her eyes at Victor, then glanced at Edeya and nodded. “I’ll be right out there, sweet.”

“I know.” Edeya sniffed and offered her a smile. Victor sat down where Lam had been and took Edeya’s small, slender hand. “Roots, your hands are rough!” She laughed, and the genuine amusement in her eyes looked good on her.

“You’re going to be fine,” Victor said, as though he’d just come to that realization.

She groaned, and the amusement faded, replaced by fresh moisture as tears sprang into her eyes. “I’m so weak! I lost my Class; I’m back to children’s levels!”

“Eh, I wasn’t much higher than that when we met. It doesn’t take that long to get up to where you were . . .”

“Only my entire life!” She pulled her hand out of his, made a fist, and thumped him on the thigh. Her knuckles were light, and he barely registered the impact.

“That was the first time. Now you have resources and friends. You’ve got an advanced bloodline! This is good, Edeya. You’re going to get different Class options, and I bet they’ll be a hell of a lot better than the first time through. Didn’t Lam tell you? Ranish Dar said there are rich, powerful people who would pay good money for a second chance at Class selection.”

Edeya exhaled a big, shuddering sigh and, to Victor’s surprise, chuckled again. “She tried. I haven’t been very reasonable. What about you, though? What about what you had to promise that giant . . . stone man?” She hesitated before she said “stone,” and it was Victor’s turn to chuckle.

“He’s crazy looking, isn’t he?”

Again, Edeya went from near tears to giggling, and she nodded. “He looked more like a monster than a man.”

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“That’s just because you didn’t hear him speak much. He’s very, very powerful, Edeya. Don’t worry about me, all right? Of course, I don’t like being pushed into it, but learning from him will probably be good for me in the long run.”

“I just feel so guilty. If I was stronger; if I could have fought her off . . . Lam said she almost killed her, too. If Kethelket hadn’t . . .”

“Didn’t I tell you to stop thinking about that shit?” Victor growled and took her hand again, squeezing it. “Think my hands got hard like this ‘cause I sit around moping about the fights I lost?”

Edeya’s eyes narrowed, and he couldn’t tell if she was getting ready to laugh or yell. She settled for calling him out on his bullshit. “Lam said you moped around for about a month after the final battle.”

Victor laughed. “Fair enough. You got me. Okay, so do you wanna compare screw-ups? You got caught by surprise by a Death Caster with thirty levels on you. I walked into a trap because I was too full of myself.” He shrugged. “So, yeah, you can be mad, but not at yourself. Got it?”

She nodded. “I’ve got it.”

Victor smiled and reached up to brush some lingering moisture off her cheek. “Now, let’s talk about how you’re going to get some levels quickly, huh?”

#

Darren gazed upon his newly formed Core and basked in the pride of his accomplishment. He could hardly believe he’d done it, could scarcely believe that the swirling ball of crackling red Energy was his. The process had been tedious, requiring some leaps of faith and deep contemplation, but, in the end, he’d done it, pulling his Energy into the correct shape and infusing it with the idea of chaotic lightning. Where before he’d had an amorphous blob of golden, placid Energy, he now had a swirling, elliptical storm of wild, red lightning in his Core. It seemed richer, deeper, and more potent despite the amount of reported Energy being the same on his status sheet. Before they faded or he accidentally sent them away, he looked at his System messages again:

***Congratulations! You have learned a new skill: Wildarc Cultivation Drill – Basic.***

***Congratulations! You have formed a new Core: Wildarc Class – Base 1.***

***Congratulations! You have gained a new affinity: Lightning – 8.***

***Congratulations! You have gained a new affinity: Chaos – 7.4.***

He felt an overwhelming sense of pride seeing those messages and wished he could save them somehow or share them with Lesh. As they began to fade, though, Darren sighed and pulled up his status sheet:

Status

Name:

Darren Whitehorse

Race:

Human - Base 1

Class:

-

Level:

1

Core:

Wildarc Class - Base 1

Energy Affinity:

Lightning 8, Chaos 7.4, Unattuned 6.1

Energy:

97/97

Strength:

6

Vitality:

7

Dexterity:

5

Agility:

5

Intelligence:

9

Will:

3

Points Available:

0

Titles & Feats:

-

Skills:

System Language Integration

Not Upgradeable

Wildarc Cultivation Drill

Basic

Spells:

-

-

He didn’t know how impressive it might look to anyone else, but to him, it was a damn sight better to see that he no longer had blanks where his Core was listed. It didn’t hurt that the tome he’d been studying and the process of building his Core had granted him a “cultivation drill.” If he hadn’t listened to his colleagues back in First Landing going on and on about their levels and Energy, he wouldn’t have a clue what that meant. Still, he had listened to them and knew he now had a way to build up his Energy reserves and, hopefully, level up his Core.

He was still sitting, legs crossed before him, in front of the big bay windows, and he looked out at the beautiful lights in the nighttime city of Sojourn. It was, literally, magical—a view that would rival a Manhattan penthouse for sheer impressiveness. The crystal towers of the city center looked like the fingers of gods sticking up from the glittering streets. Magical conveyances filled the night sky, all lit up with one magical light or another. Some glowed like faint neon roses; others flickered like rainbow bottle rockets as they zoomed hither and yon. “God, I’m glad I came with them,” he muttered, feeling something like contentment for the first time in many, many years.

He was startled from his nightgazing when the hotel room door opened and shut with a thud. “Fosterling!” Lesh boomed. “How goes your toil?”

Darren sprang to his feet, his knees almost buckling from the sudden straightening after being crossed for hours. “Lesh! Er, Elder Lesh! I did it! I made a Core!” Darren stumbled forward, almost falling to the carpet, but gathered himself as he walked toward the door and the imposing dragonkin.

“I knew you would, fosterling. You’re a member of my household now; failure was impossible.”

“I . . .” Darren suddenly felt a wave of emotion he hadn’t expected. It was something he couldn’t quite explain, something like pride but different—softer, more . . . emotional. “Thank you, Elder.”

“Well? Tell me about your Core.”

“I successfully created a Wildarc Core, Elder. I also learned a cultivation drill in the process.”

“Excellent! Not many can say the same. That’s something to take pride in! You’ll be gaining levels in no time. So? You have affinities for lightning and chaos, yes?”

“Yes! I think they’re high, too. My lightning is . . .”

“Stop there, fosterling. I appreciate your trust, but you must know that the numbers the System puts on your affinities are things you should hold close to your chest. I will hear them if you trust me; you’ve already shared with me your affinities, so I know much that could harm you already. Still, keep such information well-guarded. Only share them with people you fear no betrayal from, only with people who won’t spread your secrets.”

Darren stood only a few feet from the huge man, and he could feel something different about him, something like a palpable, heavy heat radiating from him. Was that his Energy? His aura? Darren wondered if he was more sensitive now that he had a Core of his own. He nodded and smiled, clasping his hands before himself nervously. He wanted to share! He was proud of what he’d done. Would Lesh think him stupid for doing so? Despite his fear, Darren nodded and said, “I trust you, Elder Lesh.”

“Tell me, then.”

“My Lightning affinity is eight, and my chaos is seven-point-two.”

Lesh coughed and then chuckled, shaking his big reptilian head. “Those are excellent numbers, Darren. Very high, by any world’s standard. You’re going to work great magics one day.” Suddenly, a small cask was in Lesh’s hand, and he moved across the room, sitting before the big windows on the ground near the spot Darren had previously occupied. “This calls for celebration. We’ll drink to your success. Sit. I also have news for you.”

Darren followed and sat beside him, accepting the mug of pungent, eye-watering alcohol Lesh poured for him. “News?”

“Lord Victor has succeeded in his quest to aid Edeya. She is awake and whole.”

“Oh? That’s great!” Darren looked out the window, and a wistful expression crossed his face. “Does that mean we’re leaving soon?”

“I think not.” Lesh reached over, clicked his mug against Darren’s, and said, “A toast to your success! Frakgrakshra!” The last word sounded like Lesh was either choking or growling, and Darren winced at the volume of the word. Lesh laughed. “It’s a toast from my home. It basically means that we enjoy the marrow of our enemies’ bones.”

Darren chuckled nervously, licked his lips, and said, “I’ll drink to that.” Of course, the liquor was potent and burned all the way down, sending him into a coughing fit until his face was beet red. Still, when it passed, he had a delightful buzz, and the view out the window looked even more beautiful. “We’re not leaving?”

“No. The young Ghelli princess suffered a great loss of Energy in the process of her recovery. Victor and the others think this city offers too many opportunities for her to leave so soon. More than that, Lord Victor has new obligations to a great master here. We may be living in Sojourn for a while.”

Despite himself, Darren took another drink of the harsh liquor. This time, it didn’t choke him, and he noted some of the spices—he thought he tasted something like cinnamon and a weird floral aftertaste. As the warm, euphoric buzz intensified, he stared out the window, watching a soaring silver and green bird that seemed to be made of living light. When it faded from view, he said, “I think I’m glad.”

“As you should be. I never could have dreamed of gaining my first levels in a place so rich. I have bargained with Victor on your behalf. He’s agreed to allow you to accompany Edeya into one of the many dimensional dungeons in this world.”

“A dungeon?”

Lesh nodded, grinning and drinking his booze. Darren had, of course, heard of such things. He’d heard plenty of stories about Morgan Hall and his adventures prior to coming to First Landing. He’d had to sit through many speculative conversations and meetings about the System and its strange penchant for challenging the people who lived under its rule. Something was different now, however. For the first time, he was excited about the idea of leveling. He couldn’t say he liked the thought of crawling through a dark maze filled with monsters, but there had to be a price for gaining levels, spells, skills, and Energy, right? Besides, if Victor sent Edeya into a dungeon, he’d ensure she was ready. Even if he didn’t like Darren, he’d probably be safe with her, wouldn’t he? “Did you say she’s a princess?”

“Ah, nothing official. She just seems like one to me. Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”

“Um, sure. I mean, she seems kind of wan and sickly, but maybe if she weren’t on death’s door . . .”

“Hah!” Lesh clapped him on the back, and Darren sloshed some of his drink onto the carpet. “That’s right! You’ve only ever seen her as a spiritless ghoul. You’ll see what I mean.” Lesh kicked his feet out and leaned back. “I’m pleased by your progress, Darren. I think your growth will be entertaining. I just need to convince Lord Victor to help me improve, too. I hope he shares some of the wealth of knowledge he gains from the great master he’s now bound to.”

Darren nodded, sipping his drink and mimicking Lesh’s posture. “I’m sure he will, Elder Lesh. I’m sure he will.”

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