As the door swung shut behind Daniel, he saw Tyn peering over from a round table, looking over Maylineâs head. He smiled a greeting and said something to Mayline, then the two approached.
âGood morning,â Tyn said when they were in earshot. Mayline merely dipped her head in acknowledgment. Before they reached him, they pivoted, moving instead towards a long row of counters.
The counters held many different serving containers, a long, stretched out food line, but few were in action that morning â a consequence of an emptier house, Daniel guessed. A single worker serviced the line, clad in a stained white apron and periodically checking the hot foods and shuffling items about.
It was a straight-forward and familiar system, akin to a high school cafeteria, albeit without a table of popular kids. Or they were the popular kids, given they were the only people dining at the moment.
Theo and Mayline fetched hand-carved wooden trays, and Daniel followed suit. They slid down the line to the hot food, a few simple meals prepared. Most of the food was served in large, smoothed rock bowls, though a few were presented in cruder metal containers, a peculiar clash of old but handmade and newer but mass-produced.
To what mass they had been produced for, Daniel wasnât sure, as Mast didnât seem to be a manufacturing nor consumer power house, despite its population, as the city was made up majorly by poor and worn huts.
Juxtaposition aside, the food looked appealing. A fresh white rice was steaming in a partially uncovered bowl, a staple even in a different world, placed next to another grain, that one a rich, red color.
Stew and curry seemed to be the primary courses, not quite evoking Danielâs idea of breakfast, but meals that were easy to produce for large groups of people and keep hot through the day. Portions were set out in anticipation of the first patrons, and Tyn and Mayline helped themselves. They both took a portion of each grain, but Tyn gravitated towards the vegetable-filled curry while Mayline piled the meat stew high next to her tight cup of rice.
Daniel tried both, putting a scoop of each on either side of the rice and red-grain he portioned for himself. After considering the grumble in his stomach, he added another scoop of each.
At the end of the service line were piles of fresh fruit, none recognizable to Daniel. He shied away on instinct, but his companions took a variety, both leaning towards the fruit that seemed to have shells or hearty skin on the exterior. Mayline helped herself to many of the berries though, a childish smile of excitement for the opportunity to indulge her sweet tooth.
Pushing back the base human instinct that told him not to eat unfamiliar berries, Daniel grabbed a few pieces of fruit, following the smell of citrus in hopes of finding something that could be called an orange, his favorite fruit. He wondered idly if heâd ever have a true orange again.
Before they stepped away to return to a table, though, Tyn slyly added a few extra pieces of fruit to Danielâs tray. When they sat on the curved bench, Mayline the slowest to move as she carefully balanced the tray on her single arm, Daniel arched a brow at the healer.
âA token allows you one meal, but they donât usually throw a fit about reasonable leftovers being taken,â Tyn explained, reaching towards the center of the table to fetch a plum purple cloth wrapped around a set of wooden utensils. He pulled a pronged spoon free, sporks and knives apparently the predominant utensils of the Dungeon Crawling Teams, and dug in.
âThanks for the tip,â Daniel said, taking his first combined bite of the rice, grain, and stew. It was a notable improvement from the inn food he had when he arrived, but then, hunger was the best spice of them all. âAnd thank you for the clothes, Mayline, and all the help, really. Why are you guys helping me so much?â
Mayline dipped her head, chewing aggressively to get past a mouthful of food to answer. She poured from a wooden carafe into a matching cup, the splash of clear water tantalizing, and chugged, then spoke. âMy Lady of Light commands all be welcomed and warmed under their first suns,â she answered. âAnd your first suns were quite dark. Youâre owed a few good ones.â
Tyn chewed, adding on casually around a mouthful of food. âYeah, that dungeon was a rough one. Iâm glad youâre giving us another go, theyâre not all like that, I promise. Better scouting and more experienced leadersââ
Maylineâs face darkened, a purse of her lips causing Tyn to backtrack and add on, hastily. âN-Not that the dungeon was Axenâs fault, just unfortunate misinformation and misleads.â
The trio ate in uncomfortable silence. Daniel tried to focus on his food, the sweet nuttiness of the red-grain and the savory meat stew turning out to be his favorite combo, but when it was clear Tyn, with his anxious nail picking and jittery leg, would be too nervous to speak again, he jumped in.
âSay, do you think either of you could train me in basic combat? Something simple, Iâm⦠well, Iâm a beginner, to put it lightly.â
Mayline, fortunate to have finished a bite this time, answered first. âI must return to First Light soon, and only worshipers of Inso are permitted to stay overnight. Youâre welcome to visit, though, and there may be some merit to such a trip â many Reborns have found enlightenment in the warmth of her temples.â
Tyn gave a noncommittal shrug. âAh, Iâm more of a healer than a fighter, but we can go over beginner first aid procedures and medicinal alchemy once Iâm back.â
âOnce youâre back?â
âOh, right, Henyaâs already got another mission lined up and asked me along. Weâre heading out in a day or so â whenever she gets our last party member sorted out,â Tyn explained.
A sinking discomfort made Danielâs throat tight. He knew these people so briefly, but the idea of being left alone without them made him nervous. He needed to learn the native language, hoping to bump into friendly Reborns couldnât keep working out.
âWhat about Ghost?â Daniel asked, remembering the eccentric but chipper woman and her slouched yet towering form. She didnât look particularly combat ready, but then, Mayline had one arm and Theo was barely four feet tall.
Tyn laughed at the suggestion, covering his mouth of food with the back of his hand. âNo, sorry, thatâs not a bad idea, if you can remember half of what she says and learn without seeing what sheâs doing. Sheâs good with a bow though, and impossible to beat with her fancy glaive.â
Mayline didnât seem to love the idea, her bites of food preceded by more aggressive scoops of rice and stew. But she didnât object, instead taking out her displeasure for the other woman on a piece of fruit, slicing the purple citrus into fourths and eating its innards, leaving the skin.
Daniel mimicked her dissection of the fruit, finding a refreshing, sweet and sour taste somewhere between a lemon and a blueberry. Not as good as oranges, though.
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âSounds like a plan then, thanks guys.â
Mayline stood, her meal mostly finished, leaving the tray to be cleaned by staff. âThe library is in the basement, as well, you might find information helpful to your beginning training, though self-taught is certainly a greater challenge than a competent mentor,â she said, dusting her tidy robes off as she stepped free of the bench. âNow, I must take my leave. I hope to see you soon, Daniel.â
Daniel smiled and nodded a farewell that was returned to him. Tyn cleared his throat a moment after.
âI should be going soon too, got planning and packing and shopping to get done before we head out. If you need something before Iâm gone, my roomâs #36.â
âGot it, thanks Tyn,â Daniel replied, unaware that the rooms had been numbered.
Left alone to finish his meal, he contemplated his course of action.
He needed to be able to fight, that much was clear. Setting aside the larger objective of finding and killing whatever a Primordial Beast might be, he had about thirty days of food and housing, if he could get by on a meal or two a day. He needed to clear missions, successfully â without dying and without burning more resources than the reward.
Daniel stood, pocketed the leftover fruit, and left the mess hall to go Ghost hunting.
----------------------------------------
After squirreling away the food in his room, the red sign on the door bringing comfort his items would be safe, Daniel returned to the entrance area of the DCT building.
The exhausted woman at the front desk from the night previous was still manning the post. Kali, Ghost had called her. Heâd need to add that to the notebook.
âHey, do you know where Ghost is?â Daniel asked on approach, leaning against the solid lumber counter and taking a peak at the book she was reading. He couldnât read it.
Kali rolled her eyes up from the book, an efficient expression of irritation, and stared at him, deadpan. She didnât have to answer.
âNope, okay, should have expected that. Do you know where she might be?â
Kali sighed, holding her place in the book with a thumb, her nail pitch black. âThe courtyard, probably. She spends most mornings shooting, if the upper ring is available, which it would be right now.â She gave him a warning glare that shut down any follow up questions, and returned to her book.
Daniel left the front desk, heading towards the courtyard through the path Ghost showed him earlier.
Once outside, the late morning sun nearly blinded him, the angle just right to pierce between the walls surrounding the building and the cover of the outdoor path. He squinted and hurried forward, his worn shoes tapping down the sturdy steps from the wooden structure to the periodic slabs of misshapen but flattened rocks.
No longer blinded, the courtyard revealed itself to be a beautiful combination of unfamiliar bushes, flowers, and trees. The center was clear, but lining the edges were organized layers of plants. Tynâs comment about medicinal alchemy came to mind, and he wondered how much was grown in-house.
The center of the yard hosted three rings of coded glyphs, the tight circles and dashes tinged green like the Dust Systemâs. The rings were of varying size and stacked within each other. Opposite of the main building was the secondary structure, the connecting sky bridge stretching over the glyph circles.
An entrance from the secondary building yawned open, a wide arch that revealed a tidy armory. On closer inspection, though, it seemed all the arms and armor were wooden, dulled, or otherwise worn â tools for training.
Much like the rest of the building, the room was remarkably quiet, but it did have at least one occupant.
A stocky man, tucked inside a mottled green-gray cloak, his face buried beneath a hood and layered cloth, was examining a row of training swords and testing the weight of them item by item.
Daniel, hoping at that point that everyone knew everyone, called out to him. âHey there â have you seen Ghost?â
Poor phrasing for the second time, but when the man rounded to face Daniel, he didnât jump straight to irritation. His jaw moved, shifting behind a portion of his cloak that wrapped around his lower face, but no noise came out. He pointed at the glyphs in the courtyard.
âThe upper ring?â
The man nodded.
âCould you show me how to get there?â
The man tilted his head, a quizzical examination of Daniel, before nodding again. He set the sword he was examining down and brushed past to head towards the glyph rings, his feet silent beneath him.
He stood on the innermost ring and beckoned Daniel closer, checked to make sure both pairs of feet were soundly positioned on the green markings, then stamped hard on them.
The scenery blinked away, teleporting the pair to a large aerial platform, its location obvious thanks to the landmark that was the ever looming colossal mast. They were floating far above the DCT headquarters.
The platform had several smaller platforms on it, rotating and shifting, a constant change of scenery that phantom targets spawned on. These targets, looking like stubby pigmen, glowed a red color that was nearly pink thanks to their translucent nature. They moved in unison hunting for an invisible target that was in turn hunting them.
Periodically, a pigman shattered to pieces, pierced by a massive arrow, its source trackable only through the arc of the projectile. Daniel found himself unable to get a read on where Ghost might be, but as he instead watched the man who brought him there, he could see the competent tracking skills on display.
When the last of the pigmen were slain, the smaller platforms lowered and Ghost came bounding over, heard through her excited, prancing footsteps, then her voice.
âDaniel! Excellent choice to start training right away, certainly the best way to not dieââ
âSecond only to being invisible at all times,â Daniel finished.
Ghostâs slender hand snaked out to grab his forearm and she beamed at him, a wide smile beneath a coat of shiny hair. In her other hand was a huge longbow, its size comparable to her own extraordinary limbs.
He realized he had misjudged her, or been misled. Her slouch was a social one, a nervous habit picked up to bring herself down to the size of the people around her, but when ready for combat, her posture was perfect. He had read her as skinny, but the reality was her musculature was forced to stretch over long limbs, and she was indeed very lean, her arms built into a muscular back that showed through a form fitting bodysuit.
Daniel had to tilt his head up to actually look at her face when she spoke.
âYou catch on quick, good, good, good, thatâs what we like to see around here. Happy to see youâve met Specter too. Wonderful chap he is, kind enough to let me do all the talking â not that he has a choice. Poor guy, him and I, we have the same first patron, though good ole Specter is a good few years older than myself. Nonetheless we had the same misfortune of having our patron be our first and â this poor lad, he asked to be the perfect hunter,â Ghost expositioned, each word bringing more of a crinkle to Specterâs forehead.
âAnd what does our former patron give him? Perfect silence, of course! I must say, I do think his curse is quite a bit more creative than mine, though the downsides seem to far outweigh the benefits â I mean, he was a hunter before, he must have already been quite quiet. I wonder if thereâs any other benefits Specter hasnât deemed fit to mention.â
If Specter were capable of sighing, he would have. He settled for rolling his eyes, giving Daniel the distant version of the Reborn-greeting he had come to expect from everyone with a patron. Daniel returned the chest tap and hand extension, and Specter departed from the platform, stamping the outer ring of glyphs to exit.
âWell then, Iâd suppose you sought me out for a purpose, what can I do for you Daniel?â
âIâm looking for basic arms training.â He hoped keeping to short sentences would encourage Ghost to do the same. It didnât.
âAh, a practical but broad beginnings. Iâm afraid Iâm a bit of a tricky mentor in that department, quite difficult to show proper form when you canât show anything, but I can certainly get you started with a bow and stationary movements as the beginners tend to use.â
Daniel returned her sympathetic smile. âAnything is better than nothing.â