SpoilerI want to thank all of my patrons, including:KidoTreant BalewoodOrchamusElectric HeartAiden KingCrazySith87ShadowsmageSammaxAngeliightPreytorFenixPheonix14FndersAnd my 180 other patrons!

  Thank you guys; without your help I could never write as much as I do!

  [colpse]Emerisisted that I didn’t o help prepare for the night, though I did help a little anyway. The look on Donat’s face when I ed the cauldron with a tap of my fingers was worth the half dozen points of mana I spent.

  The tents weren’t the sort of tents I was used to. In fact, there were little more than vas sheets with a few holes here and there that had fps c them. Ropes strung out between the rees held them up, and little ties on the vas allowed parts of it to be folded in to form walls around three sides.

  It would keep the rain off, if it rained, and the wind too, but that was about it. Still, no weird retractable sticks to deal with, so it wasn’t all bad. I was given a spot in the middle of Valerie and Arianne and a few extra bhat were less than fresh until a couple of ing spells fixed them up.

  “Zat’s a handy little spell,” Arianne said as she watched me y out a bo sleep on and ao cover myself. I had my own too, so I would be nid snug all night. It was like a sleepover but outside and with strangers!

  “It’s great!” I said. “I never got to see much magic, so I was super excited when I got my own spell.”

  Arianne’s smile was at once demure aremely amused. “Well zen, do you want to see some more?”

  “Yes!” I said before scrambling to my feet and following after her. Magic was awesome because it was magic. Even after using my ing spell a huimes I couldn’t get over how cool it was. “ you teach me about magic?”

  “I , a little. But zen we must sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day. What do you know so far?”

  “Um. I push magito stuff, and then I lose some mana. Then things happen.”

  Ariatered. “I have my work cut out for me, zen.” She walked us over to the edge of the clearing. “Zere are two types of spells... no. zere are many many types of spells, but only two matter for you. You worry about ze ozers ter.”

  “So what are the two, then?” I asked. I was boung on the balls of my feet as the marsh wizard raised her staff and narrowed her eyes in focus.

  “Ze light of my soul illuminates,” she said while making a cuppiure in the air uhe end of her staff. A spark appeared, then formed into a baseball-sized ball of whitish light that began to fall. “Ze will of the world captures.” The light started to dim. “Ze weight of my will determines ze path.”

  And just like that the ball stopped falling and hovered in pce, releasing a whitish light that was weaker than a torch, but that ure and clear. “Cool,” I whispered.

  “Zat is for the sombrals. Zey dislike ze light,” Arianne expined. “Zat was oype of magic. A spell zat I cast using my own mana by trolling it, zen I tied it to zis pce so zat it hovers.”

  “So if I ted like that, would it do the same thing?” I asked. I was trying to memorize the t just in case. I wanted light balls. I could hang them all over the pd people would ent on them and tell others of how cool Broccoli Bunch’s balls were.

  “No, ze t is to help. Do you know what a... mnemonic is?”

  “Like a song to remember something?”

  “Yes, zat’s exactly right. Many practitioners use zem. Some have very misleading ts to trick oppos. Zey are just to help you remember and to help you move ze mana ze right way at ze right time. I cast zis spell wizout because I have been practig it a lot, but to demonstrate it is easier wiz ze t.”

  “Okay, so you take your mana and then you make a light ball?”

  Arianne shook her head, then paused. “Yes. But zat is too simple. Zere is a specific shape ze mana must take. Zere is some leeway, but not too much. Ozerwise ze spell fails. Zat is where ze ozer kind of spel es in. Skills.”

  Ariaapped her staff to the ground and a clod of mud rose up, then twisted around itself until it took the shape of a small muddy frog person that barely came up to my shin. It wobbled around on unsteady legs, then colpsed into a heap of mud.

  “Zat is a golem spell. To cast it would take me a minute. Maybe two, if I want to avoid mistakes. But by using a skill like Earth Magiipution it bees trivial.” She smiled at me. “Do you uand?”

  Right, I khat using magic skills came with an instinct for it. My ing magic was the same way. I didn’t really have to think too hard on it and the spell just kind of formed immediately and worked on the first try. Did that mean that someohout the ing skill could use my spell? Probably, but as Arianne said, it would be difficult. I could see why. The amount of mana used in each ing spell was slightly different, which probably meant that the spell was a tiny bit different too.

  So using skills to cast spells was like having a calcutor do the math for you. Or maybe a puter solving your physics problems. Casting it yourself was like doing it by hand. But that meant that you could still do it by hand.

  “Wait, does that mean I learn Fireball?”

  Arianne sighed. “Zey always want ze fireballs. No Arianne, don’t cover ze enemy in mud, light zem on fire. Always ze same.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. I might have touched on a sensitive topic. “I think mudballs are cool too. All magic is cool, and you’re a wizard, which means you’re cool by default.”

  Arianne shook her head from side to side, a strange swaying motion with the way her neck was made. “Go rest. Yoing to have a long walk tomorrow,” she said before pg a hand on my head and ruffling my hair like a big meanie.

  ***

  I woke up with a jaw-shattering yawn, then stretched my arms and legs out every which way. It took a moment for me to realize where I was, but the strange croaking snores of the girls o me helped a bunch. A g of the tent revealed that the sun was rising and that m was here and the faint ks of metal against metal and the crackle of a fire suggested that someone .

  I slid out of my bs and searched for my armour and stuff. I had slept in it before but now, with a whole party of strong adventurers around, I felt safe enough to just sleep in my normal things.

  All dressed up and ready, I slid out of the tent and stood up tall to take in a deep lungfull of m air.

  “Up already?”

  I finished my stretch with a few sways of my hip to get my lower back settled, then bounced on the spot a few times. “Yup!” I said.

  Emerid Leonard were both sitting around the fire while a small metal pan was sitting with a slice of bread on it and a pot sat o it with what looked like beans boiling merrily away.

  “Is that breakfast?” I asked.

  “Favourite meal of ze day?” Emeric asked as he stirred the beans.

  “I’ve beeing nothing but honey and berries for a while, any meal is my favourite if it’s got her. Not that I dislike either, it’s just too much is too much.”

  Leonard made a croaky-snort. “Unprepared child,” he said.

  I sat o them and waited, tummy growing fiercer by the minute, as breakfast repared. It was nice. Emeric filled three bowls up, mine almost to the brim, then he pced some toast atop the bowl a down to eating in quiet, only the m birdsong to apany my oms and noms.

  “We’ll be leaving soon enough,” Emeric said. “I got grumpy here to draw you a basic map and zere are supplies in zat sack over there.” He gestured to a bag off to the side. “Some ed goods, a few little things. Our st loaf of proper bread. Ah, and some hardtack. It tastes awful but it will keep you fed.”

  “I... ’t e with you?” I asked. I kept my eyes on my y bowl.

  I saw Emeric shake his head from the er of my eye. “No. We’re not just going to Threewells. The Duhere, if it’s still active, would be eously dangerous for someo your level. And we have to move quickly.”

  “I move quickly,” I said.

  He smiled. “Nope. You get yourself back to Rockstack. There are some nice folk over there, some will be willing to keep an eye on you, maybe eve you a job. Ask for Julliette, she runs the inn. She ought to have some work for you.”

  “If you are dead set on being a fool, then head over to Port Royal,” Leonard said. He handed over a folded piece of part with a red wax seal on the front. “My name has some weight there. The people at the headquarters of the Exploration Guild might see something in you if you don’t act like such a foo-- don’t break the seal!”

  I froze, fingers caught fiddling with the seal before I let go of it and gave him a sheepish smile. “It’s still attached,” I said.

  “Idiot,” Leonard said. “I’m going to wake the others.”

  Emeric watched him go, then turo me with a huge smile. “I think he really likes you.”

  “I do not!” Leonard roared, which probably helped in waking all the others more than anything else he did.

  “He’s nider all that gruffness,” I said. “I kind of wish I could e with you, I hate making friends and then losing them right away.”

  “You’ll make good friends one day. No worries,” Emeric said. He rooted around in a bag and found ain of beans which he opened with a casual flick of a knife across its top. “Maybe you’ll start your own party?”

  “That would be wonderful,” I said. It would be! Just me and some close friends, heading out on mysterious adveo discover hidden things. We’d meet dragons and ride them into battle and it would be awesome.

  “Wait,” I said. “You have beans that e in tins?”

  “Yes?” Emeric said. “They’re good for travelling, which we do a lot of. You buy them in most guild supply stores. They’re not meant for civilians but they’ll sell you some if you don’t mind the mark-up.”

  The others woke up oer the other, some with more acrity than the rest. Arianne was not a m person and kind of just flopped o Emeritil he pushed a bowl into her hands. Valerie zeroed in on breakfast and scarfed it down, then bounced around while undoing the tents and gathering all of their things in a hyperactive hurry.

  And then it was time to go. Donat and Pierre, who had been sneaky all night, waited by the roadside. Leonard was deep in a map and Valerie was rubbing a tired Arianne’s back. Emeric reached a froggy hand out to me. “Good bye, Broccoli,” he said.

  “Bye Emeric,” I replied right back.

  We shook and I waved goodbye to the others as the party formed up and started walking and hopping away.

  I swallowed thickly, put on a smile, and got my stuff. I still had a ways to go. But maybe I would see them again. It would be o be part of the same group as them, maybe. Time would tell.

  Ding! For repeating a Special A a suffit number of times you have unlocked the general skill: Friendmaking

  I ughed as I set off into the unknown.