Chapter 5: Should Have Put This Name to a Vote

When everyone had made absolutely sure they weren’t dead, Cantor and Shin went over the remnants of the mossbeast with their knowledge and skills, harvesting half a dozen varieties of rare and, apparently, expensive vegetation for later sale. Cecilia had taken the time to recover; her boosted Endurance and the Self-Repair skill were earning their keep, because by the time they began the trek back to Ikshan, her shoulder had set itself, and she could semi-honestly answer that she didn’t have any major injuries.

Thankfully, she was spared having to haul the materials or the trophy - a twisted knot of green, fuzzy wood-like substance that Shin said was the mossbeast’s heart - because Cantor conjured a spectral platform that they could load all their loot onto. As they walked, the platform followed meekly behind them. “I want to learn magic,” Cecilia declared, after turning around to look at the heaps of materials just floating in the air.

Shin rolled her eyes. “There is no point in knowing magic. It is difficult, expensive, and if you do not have a class to supplement your learning with skills, very time-consuming. Leave it to mages.”

“That’s not fair,” Cantor replied, with a scowl in the hunter’s direction. “It’s true that learning magic is easier with a class that has dedicated magical skills. But it’s not necessary. Magic is just harnessing the power of azoth that flows through all things. Once you know it’s there, practice and discipline will serve, regardless of your class.”

“And how long does practice and discipline without classes take?” Shin short back, looking at him. “You have the right class, and education at the Exalted Circle. And yet, you are only level six. How long did you study at your apprenticeship?”

Cantor turned red. “I...well. I was apprenticed when I was ten. So, about ten years. But that’s hardly fair--”

“See?” Shin cut him off. “A great deal of time and effort, for few levels. Magic is for those who are wealthy enough not to need to work.”

“Magic is a discipline. It requires study. Investment.”

“Investment is for rich people,” Shin said. “The rest of us must eat today.”

Cecilia cleared her throat before someone notched an arrow or fired a spell. “I’m not saying I’ll be any good at it. But I’d love to at least study some of the fundamentals. See what I can do.”

Cantor beamed. “I’d be delighted to share my apprentice text with you. It is a very basic treatment of magical theory. Only a starting place, mind you. But if you like it, then perhaps I could teach you a fundamental spell or two.” From the way his eyes were lighting up, he was clearly thinking of it as part of his ongoing research project.

She thought about the Grimoire skill; with that, she could probably shorten the learning curve a bit. Did Cantor have a similar skill? A grimoire was a magical book, she thought. She hadn’t seen him carrying around any sort of specific spellbook, although he certainly had a lot in his room. “Do you use a grimoire, Cantor?”

Surprised, he shook his head. “I do not, although many Mages do. One of my Class Scholar skills allows me to memorize spells in advance and trigger them with a short invocation.”

“Those gestures you were making with your hands?”

“Precisely. Many Mages use vocal incantations, of course, just as most people use vocal invocations for their skills.” A shadow passed over his face, and he looked away, towards the weak sunlight that filtered through the canopy. “My master considered this foolish, and was quite determined to teach his students how to cast without revealing one’s intent with verbal spells.”

“Sounds smart.” Which, for Cecilia, brought up another question. “Why do people feel an urge to shout their skills? I get spells, chanting, all of that bruja stuff. But I don’t need to yell ‘Triple Strike’ to punch someone, do I?”

“But it feels good to yell,” Shin said. “Powerful. And everyone knows to fear your skill.”

Cantor’s mouth twitched into a smile. “You don’t have to. Many of the world’s more seasoned practitioners don’t, if they’re in situations where opponents might be able to predict their moves based on it. And, of course, there are Classes such as Thief and Spy which would find the vocalization of skills to be somewhat counterproductive for the use of them.”

Cecilia laughed. “Right. No one wants to be a thief who has to shout ‘Move Silently’ before she can start sneaking around.”

“Precisely so.” He turned thoughtful. “But for combat skills, in particular, there does seem to be an instinctive desire to declare them. I don’t know why.”

“Because it feels good to yell.” They both turned to Shin, and she shook her head at them in mock disgust. “You are both thinking too much. Sometimes things just feel right.”

It did feel pretty good. And weren’t there styles of martial arts where you were supposed to yell as you struck? Maybe there was some sort of psychological component to the whole thing, or it helped your body to commit to it.

Or maybe Shin was right, and Cecilia was overthinking it. “I suppose. I’m just curious, I guess.”

“There is no shame in curiosity,” Cantor put in, with an indignant look at Shin. “It behooves us all to examine the laws of our world. How else will we understand how to grow to our full potential?”

Shin grinned. “I’m a Hunter. I grow to my full potential by hunting. Don’t need to be a member of the Exalted Circle to understand that. And,” she waved at the pieces of mossbeast behind them, “that helped me level. So I must be doing right. Cecilia, you did as well, yes? The monster was at least twice your level!”

“I...didn’t, actually.” Cecilia frowned, poking at the mental place where the voice usually informed her of any impending stat or skill points to spend. It remained stubbornly silent. “Is that weird?”

Shin whistled. “You must have an amazing class. Almost any combat class would level from a threat twice its level.”

Cantor cleared his throat. “Yes, well. Levels will come. It’s best not to obsess over these things, don’t you think?”

“You are a Class Scholar,” Shin replied, her eyes twinkling. “Obsessing over these things is what you do.”

“I--well, that’s--I mean, it’s not the--”

Cecilia snickered and reached out to thump him lightly on the shoulder. “She’s fucking with you,” she informed him, kindly. “Relax.” To Shin, she shrugged. “I’m not sure I even have a combat class, exactly. I’m just sort of trying things out and seeing what fits.”

Shin didn’t hide her curiosity, but seeing that Cecilia wasn’t going to elaborate further, she nodded. “Well, I am glad to have you as a partner in the field. Combat class or not, you prove to be very sturdy. Not many people could be smothered by a mossbeast and live!”

“Yeah, I’d like to avoid doing that again, if possible. It was a close thing, even for me.”

“Mm. I suppose so. However, we will be well paid. I’ll have to remake my explosive arrowheads, but even after that, it should be a nice share.”

On that, at least, the three could agree - although Cecilia mostly nodded along with the rest, as she was still working out the currency system.

Several hours later, she had to admit that even without knowing exactly how much money she had, the heap of little metal sticks on the table before her was nice and large, with several more silver sticks in the mix. They had brought the mossbeast parts to Orn and received both the bounty for killing the creature, as well as the Guild’s valuation of the loot. Orn had stared at the platform of mossy parts for a full minute before congratulating them. She still remembered the way he’d looked at her, with sharp speculation. She’d drunk her potion before returning to town, and she didn’t think one could feel a skill being used.

But she imagined she felt it anyway, a wash of heat crawling over her illusory skin, trying to see the ceramic underneath. He’d handed them their little pouches of money. “So, should I add a new adventuring team to the roster?”

They hadn’t had an answer, then. Cecilia had expected Shin to immediately speak up in favor of the idea; instead, the Hunter collected her coin with a cheerful, “We will see,” and excused herself, jangling her pouch in some merry and unfamiliar song.

Cantor had also hesitated. “We’ll discuss the matter,” he’d told the Guildmaster, solemnly. When they made their way out of the building, and into the street, he added to Cecilia, “I’m not entirely adverse to the idea, but I would rather not exert undue pressure. I need to purchase some reagents, so perhaps we will meet in the morning and decide?”

Cecilia agreed. She’d happily sign up to be a team with the two of them, but at the same time, she wondered if she’d be able to pull her weight. Aside from being a newcomer to the world, she gathered she was less than half their level. She could take a hit, sure enough. But she didn’t have much else to offer outside of that. Not even from her own world. She didn’t know how to build a computer, or make gunpowder. Coding data analysis scripts and writing reports served her well on Earth, but here they were less than worthless.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Her mouth twisted as she sat in the Moss House’s common room, a half-empty mug of some sort of beer on one side, and the heap of fantasy coin before her. If she were honest, her skills hadn’t been much help on Earth, either. They hadn’t stopped her from being killed.

As soon as she let her mind slide in that direction, Cecilia could see the pavement once again, the spiraling, head-first dive to the street below. She gulped down most of the beer in one long swallow, the memory of wind whistling in her ears. Who? Why? The first question was the most painful.

Was it Joshua, her direct supervisor? He was a bit of a dick, but she wouldn’t have pegged him for murder. Stealing credit? Yes, absolutely. But if you thought about it, that made someone less likely to murder. Why kill the goose who laid the golden egg?

Then again, the people in that story did kill the goose, no matter how stupid it obviously was. But Cecilia tried to picture Joshua - weedy, rapid-talking Joshua - in the position of her killer, and the image blue screened. That push had felt confident, calculated. And it was just a single, solid shove. The movement of someone who knew what they were doing and had committed to it. Joshua couldn’t even commit to his boyfriend.

Cecilia snorted, slipped the coin into her larger money pouch. In the movies and games, they always talked about these things hanging from a belt. Instead, this one tucked inside a pocket of her over large jacket, giving a little extra protection from cutpurses and pickpockets. It pulled oddly on the fabric, and there was a noticeable bulge with this much weight in there. She’d have to spend some, soon, just to keep from being obviously loaded down with koil .

Her mind drifted back to murder. Her own, of course. If she ruled out Joshua, there were only two other people she regularly talked to at work - Kathy, in the next tiny office over, and Mani. Cecilia and Kathy had always gotten along fine, bonding over the shared frustrations of being the only women on the data analysis team. She didn’t recall anything that they’d ever quarreled about, except that one time where Kathy stole her creamer, but insisted that she’d thought it was office creamer. Nonsense. Their office was far too cheap to ever buy the organic hazelnut creamer that Cecilia liked. Even if they had, basic human decency demanded that if you used up an office condiment, you put it on the list to be refilled at the end of the week.

It had caused a couple of tense days at the office, but she didn’t think either of them were ready for violence. And Mani was...well, Mani was weird, to be sure. Not scary weird, was the thing. He worked down the hall, didn’t talk much, wasn’t even technically on their team, but apparently whatever he did, the closest thing to it was data analysis, so he was always grouped with them during office events. Mostly quiet, soft-spoken when he did speak, and he always brought home-cooked dishes to the potlucks. Good ones, too.

People said that it was always the quiet ones, but Mani? Cecilia was pretty sure that Mani lived with four dogs. They were probably rescues. Throwing people off buildings just didn’t seem like his style.

And with that, she’d talked herself out of all of the main suspects at work.

Her personal life didn’t offer any further leads, though. Cecilia hadn’t been dating anyone seriously; Luis and she had an on-again, off-again sort of thing that was only barely above late night booty calls. She hadn’t wrecked any homes or stolen any money.

There was a flicker again of Morelia, and she told herself sternly to stop. The earrings were not that important.

When the front door opened, Cecilia glanced over, hoping that it might be Shin or Cantor - even though both had looked exhausted when the three had split up. She didn’t recognize either of the two newcomers, but they didn’t seem happy to be here. They were both large and well-muscled, even the woman, and didn’t bother to kick the road dirt off their feet before stomping over to the counter. “Room,” the woman said, her voice brisk and unfriendly. She handed over a couple of small sticks - an amount that Cecilia was starting to realize was overpaying by quite a bit - and added, “And information.”

The keeper’s hand hesitated over the sticks. “What sort of information?” he asked, voice low and wary.

“Looking for a hunter. Calls herself Shin. Where’s she stay?”

The keeper hesitated, then shrugged and drew the coin to himself. “Down the milking way, out towards the east forest wall. She in trouble?”

“Nope. Message from her brother, that’s all.” The woman took the key that was offered, and the two stomped past Cecilia’s table, heading up the stairs.

“Beefy messengers you guys have here.” Cecilia exchanged a look with the keeper, who shrugged and turned away. Not my problem in perfect, non-verbal form.

Cecilia wavered. Shin was surely asleep, and it seemed unlikely that these two just walked into town to openly make trouble for the hunter. Maybe they were adventurers.

She’d check in first thing in the morning, just in case.

*

Cecilia overslept. Her body no longer felt fatigue in the same way, and she must have been more tired than she realized. Or it was a side-effect of the regeneration skill.

Either way, when she awoke, it was to the late morning sounds of people eating downstairs, and the second floor seemed empty, the ‘messengers’ having already departed. She cursed under her breath, scrabbled for her gear, hastily drank down half of the gag-inducing class shield potion, and ran down the stairs and out the door.

Then she had to stop and ask where down the milking way was. It turned out to be a foot-worn path that led out to the not-sheep pastures inside the wall. She jogged in that direction, and sure enough, in the distance she saw a tidy little cottage, Shin outside, and the two from last night standing close to her.

Shin’s posture was defensive, and her eyes flashed with anger. Cecilia sped up to reach the trio. “...know what we’re here for,” the out of town woman was saying.

“How much more of this?” Shin asked, and spit on the ground, off to the side, where it wouldn’t spatter on anyone’s shoes.

“Guess that’s up to him, ain’t it?”

“Shin.” Cecilia put herself directly behind the man even as she greeted her friend. The positioning reminded her of the grel, and she brought her fists up. “Everything okay?”

All three jumped, and Cecilia took a deep breath. Before she could shout her skill, Shin barked, “Stop.” She shook her head. “There is no problem, here.” She unhooked her money pouch from her belt, thrust it at the woman. “Take this.”

It turned out a shakedown looked the same in both worlds. The woman pocketed the pouch, and smirked. “Pleasure doing business with you.” Both heavies turned to leave, although they watched Cecilia with narrowed eyes as they stalked by.

Although she trembled with the desire to pounce and take back the money, Cecilia stood and watched. “You okay, Shin?”

“I am well.” She didn’t sound well. She sounded defeated.

“They came in last night. I’m sorry, I meant to get here before them, but I know where they’re staying. We can–”

“Do nothing.” The hunter’s hand cut the air and Cecilia’s words. “The matter is handled, Cecilia. There is nothing you can do.”

“But–”

Gold eyes flashed with irritation. “I have not pressed you on matters which are private to you. Should I not expect the same courtesy?”

Cecilia’s mouth snapped shut on that uncomfortable truth. “Okay. Fine.” She lifted her hands. “No more questions. But if you want to do more jobs, build your funds back up, I’m in.”

Shin brightened. “Yes? Good. I had hoped that the mossbeast did not frighten you off. I have been thinking of Orn’s offer. An adventuring team. We work well together, I think.”

“I think so, too,” Cecilia said. “Although–I can’t stay here forever. Cantor’s been helping me with a research project, but we need to go to a bigger city to find the books he needs. I don’t know if you would want to come with us?”

Shin’s gaze followed the two figures dwindling in the distance. “Can Gallos. That is where you will go?”

“We haven’t discussed specifics, yet.”

“That is where you will go,” Shin said, this time sounding confident. “It has a branch of the Exalted Circle, a library, scholars. And it is only a week or so away, by road. How long until you leave?”

“A month. I signed a contract with the Guild. And we need savings for the trip.”

Shin’s fingers brushed against the place where her money pouch no longer was. “Very well. Yes, I will go with you, if you and Cantor are both agreed. I might as well. And…if it is acceptable, I would form an adventuring team with you both.”

“Hot damn.” Cecilia grinned at the flash of confusion. “That’s great! Let’s go talk to Cantor about it.” She held out a hand, and with an amused snort, Shin took it. It was as if the earlier confrontation with the goons had never happened.

But Cecilia had not forgotten it. She made a silent promise to herself: she’d discover what sort of trouble Shin was in, and she’d fix it. It was the least she could do.

[You are Level Four. You have Stat Points to Distribute. You have Skill Points to Distribute. You should choose a Technique.]

“Yes!”

They found Cantor just waking up; his bleary eyes took in the pair of them outside his door, then squinted at the sun, now climbing towards the apex of the sky. Finally, he grunted and beckoned them to follow him up the stairs into his small, cramped room.

“Not a morning person, huh?” Cecilia asked.

“Mages, they never are,” Shin replied, sounding almost gleeful about it. “They will sleep half the day if allowed.”

“Only when we have depleted our entire reserve of azoth because someone wanted to pick a fight with malevolent foliage.” Cantor threw himself into a chair. “And I know that look. Should you really be calling me lazy before asking me to join a team with you?”

“I did not say lazy,” Shin declared. “It will be good for you. Cecilia and I, we will ensure you wake up early, and challenge yourself.”

“Oh, no.” Cecilia stepped away from Shin. “I’m not volunteering to wake anyone up. Especially not someone who can set me on fire with a finger wiggle. You’re on your own with that one.” She did flash a grin at Cantor. “But, that said? We make a good team. Shin’s up for travel, and when she and I agreed to team up? I leveled.”

Cantor sat up straight, drowsiness vanishing. “Really? Quite interesting, indeed.” He didn’t ask further questions, although she could see them crowding behind his eyes. “Well, then. I actually have no objection to working with you both. What name were you thinking for the registration?”

Cecilia and Shin exchanged a look. “We didn’t actually–”

With a jerk, Cantor rose to his feet. “Luckily, I have entire books filled with the names and details of some of the most famous adventuring teams in history. Let’s see–Ochari’s Wrath of Seven Suns? The Five Brothers? Hmm, no. Too specific. Oak, Ash, and Thorn? They were quite famous as a trio, but they were all Druids. It might not fit our general aesthetic. How about puns? Puns have a long and storied history–”

“No puns,” Shin declared. “Something simple and straightforward. That will speak to our competence. The Thousand Arrows.”

“There are only three of us,” Cecilia said, skeptically.

“And only one of us even uses arrows,” Cantor muttered. “Besides, it’s plain. If we are going to do this, let’s do it properly. A name that should be properly sounded in the halls of the powerful, or shouted from the heavens. The Enduring Flame of Righteous Wrath!” He beamed at them both. “Good, right?”

“No.”

“Not really.”

He drooped. “Well, I refuse to be an Arrow.”

Cecilia resisted the urge to offer The Three Musketeers. Naming things was not exactly her strong point, but it was clear that if she left it up to the other two, it’d end in a brawl. “How about The Seekers of Diamond?”

Shin made a thoughtful sound. “I do like diamonds,” she allowed. “Although I am not picky. Does that make us sound greedy? I am content to be paid in rubies, emeralds, or even simple koil. I would not wish to make people feel that it had to be diamond.”

Cantor knew she referred to a different diamond entirely. He held her gaze, then said, “It does seem to be a bit, shall we say, on the nose? How about Seekers of the Threshold?”

“What sort of threshold?”

Cecilia grinned at Shin. “Whatever the next one is. I like it. Feels like we’re always about to start something new. Something challenging. That’s what gives us levels, right?”

Although Shin was not entirely convinced by this line of reasoning, she admitted that she had no better suggestions (unless they involved arrows), and with a minimum of grumbling, they made their way to the Guild, and watched while Orn penned their name into a large book. As he did so, the board on the far side of the Guild room glowed. A bold, golden script printed itself on the shale.

Seekers of the Threshold: Open for Commissions.