But for a Slime

* * *

Joe turned to look at her, and Gwenvair felt fear spike through her but then calmed when she found Joe unusually calm as well. She sighed in relief to see him so, his rage earlier had been overwhelming; terrifying even. She’d struggled against it to calm him, but while the rage had consumed them both, she quickly realized she had nothing to fear despite his rage, what he felt was only anger, there was no intent. That calmed her, and confused her. She couldn’t understand why rage like this was somehow so benign. In any other person, she feared it would have been indiscriminate, destroying all around them and for a time, despite her knowing how polite Joe was, she expected exactly that. Yet, his rage, despite how powerful it was, was held back behind something she could not explain. He was angry, but his anger appeared to be directed and so she felt relief for it and dedicated herself to keeping it safely contained, keeping it tightly controlled in a tiny little ball buried deep down inside their family’s psyche. She could keep it there for a long, long time.

Joe grinned down at her, “I have an excellent plan to execute!”

* * *

Joe grinned down at Gwenvair, “Boy do I have an idea!”

Gwenvair smiled back up, “What is that?”

Joe smiled brighter, “Watch!”

Joe then took out another couple goblins before directing them to the second floor and killing most of the mobs on that floor. Still need to level them up… and it’s not that hard and we can still head on down! He deliberately led them through the dangerous mob filled floor by killing every mob he could on the way across it. The others continued to level quickly and easily, and Joe wiped out most of the floor before heading into the third floor and killing everything there as well. He first spent some time teaching the three new members how to kill the monsters there before continuing on, leading them across the floor until they reached the door to the fourth floor.

He paused there and checked how they were doing and noticed that they’d reached well past level fifteen and Joe grinned to see it. Nice… tomorrow will get them past metropolitan easily. Hmm.. would be nice if I could get that done tonight then be on to citizen. Then we could hit the education jobs in two days. Although… now that I know about gifted, opening a massive amount of jobs would … really be a good idea… Joe frowned, a bit bitter about it. Couldn’t do it though… I don’t have enough job changes to do that… nor enough jobs for them yet. Hmm… maybe with metropolitan and citizen I’ll get enough? I… huh. Joe paused and took a look at his available jobs in citizen and metropolitan and then he frowned. Really? Only fourteen open jobs? Does that mean… twenty five? Thirty? In citizen or metropolitan, or… maybe other jobs? Man… hmm… OK. So… still worth it to head to educated and hmm… yup educated and crafter. Easy fifty jobs there… although after filling up commoner, metropolitan, and citizen… they’ll only need maybe thirty… So probably should do educated to tap it out for the learning gains then swap to crafter ASAP to fill it up to fifty jobs for them. That should really help. Then… yeah.

With that, Joe decided that it would make sense to see if he could get them to twenty in metropolitan tonight and also realized that getting them to ten in the other jobs hadn’t really been that useful, despite the increased learning they’d gained, it was nothing compared to the learning Joe was somehow gifting them with his researcher skills. But… this’ll help them get real independent real fast… and the best I can do for them right now. They really need their own learning… can’t really have them too dependent upon me.

They’d gotten to about to level eighteen and Joe was pretty certain it was getting into evening so he pushed on into the fourth floor for a break. The other’s followed along easily enough, although they seemed a bit confused.

“Where are we going, Joe?” Gwenvair asked.

Joe grinned, looking down at Gwenvair, “To help you guys and to help you and your mother with your … clan issues.”

Gwenvair raised an eyebrow at that before grinning, “This will help my mom?”

Joe grinned then felt it slip a bit, “It won’t help much, but… right now, it’s the best I can think of.”

Gwenvair’s grin grew, “Whatever you are willing, all I can say is thank you.”

Joe nodded, then turned back to the fourth floor. He swapped out his job to navigator so he could figure out where he was going and brought up the map. He studied the map carefully then realized he could just keep it up until he got to one of the four mini boss mobs on the floor before swapping to what he wanted to level. He grinned at what he was doing, wondering if it was even really worth it, but decided to continue on that path anyway. Every little bit helps. He quickly searched the map before drawing out his options and led them all on the quickest way through the maze.

Their first stop was the slime. He swapped to a job he was currently leveling before he took it out pretty quick. While he tried to get the others to help out, the slime was simply too fast and dangerous for them, much to the frustration of both Stephliquen and Kalia. Ultimately, all four of the sub boss monsters proved too difficult for them to be involved in and so he ended up killing them all by himself. The others were unable to gain any experience since they didn’t landed any hits or caused any damage.

Despite that, he punched through the fourth floor with ease and quite quickly, finishing it off in about thirty minutes or so. When they arrived before the giant door to the fifth floor, he quickly slapped in all the medallions, including one of half a dozen goblin king medallions he’d gotten and hadn’t used. The door opened and then he turned back to the others. The three new people stared up at the door with curiosity and some interest, but not much else. Gwenvair seemed to understand the ramifications of the door and stared at it with equal measures of greed, worry, and excitement. Joe grinned and nodded at her before facing them all.

“Right. This is the final floor. There are six monsters in there… all two core ones. I’m going to head in and fight them. You can come in if you want, but you need to hide and protect yourselves. To be honest, I think it would be best if you didn’t. I think I was lucky because the monster dealt with me honorably, but at the end, he did start attacking the others and things got crazy. So, if it’s OK? Could you wait out here and then I’ll come back out after I’m done?”

Gwenvair quickly nodded in agreement while the other two who knew common also agreed. Stephliquen simply stared at him oddly as well as avidly staring at the door. Joe nodded to all of them with a grin then turned. He then pulled out his backpack from the magic space which had everyone looking at him with various emotions ranging from wonder to curious consideration. He dug through his pack and checked out the weapons in his magic bag inventory, wondering whether he wanted to set up his whole weapon harness before festooning himself with his weaponry or attempt to use his magic bag inventory to hold his weapons.

He spent some time again, just making sure of how his magic bag inventory worked, and frowned at how the weaponry came out of the space. Gonna add some time to the whole thing cause I’ll need to change my grip on every weapon that comes out… but, I’ll get a lot more agility, not worrying about where my weapons are in my harness or even about my harness… and I still will take time to pull most weapons out of my various sheaths, so… a wash? Except much easier and freer movement since I don’t have them sticking off all over me? Inventory slightly better on the pros, I guess?

He played a bit more then had an idea and put his quiver in the magic bag as well before figuring out how it would work. Thankfully, the quiver and all the arrows somehow counted as a single item so all went into one space. That excited Joe but he was still quite pessimistic, remembering one aspect of the magic bag that made it of dubious worth for storing weaponry for use in the middle of combat. His fears proved true after inserting and removing the quiver from the space a half a dozen times and on the seventh time, the quiver appeared in his hand upside down. His hand grasped it perfectly fine, holding it well, but all the arrows tumbled out of the quiver and clanged out as they collapsed to the floor like a massive game of pickup sticks. Joe frowned, grumbling under his breath before tossing the quiver bag into the magic bag by itself then paused in thought, wonder stealing over him. Ooh!

He took all the arrows, and began popping them back into the magic bag and he soon had all fifty of the modern arrows in a single slot in his magic bag space. Joe grinned. OK. This… is real nice! But his grin slipped when he pulled an arrow out and had it come into his hand in odd directions and ways. That said, he was able to retrieve a single arrow and with semi-relative ease set it to his bow. His grin returned and he slipped the arrow back into the inventory. Not amazing, but not bad! Right… His grin grew even more as he turned to consider his primary weaponry. He considered for a few seconds before he equipped the shield and spear. He checked himself one more time then headed in. Joe’s grin grew from an easy farewell to a grimacing snarl of glee. This… is so gonna work!

Joe headed into the yawning darkness and stepped past it into a brilliant hall. Behind him, the others vanished as he passed the threshold. Right… let’s do this!

* * *

Gwenvair watched him head in, then turned to the other three, finally allowing her fear and worry to show. The others seemed to notice, although Stephliquen still appeared confused by what she was watching. Xylarnae stepped forward with a soft grin.

“What is happening?”

Gwenvair grinned, “He goes to conquer the dungeon.”

Kalia narrowed her eyes at this, “This is… a dungeon? You call it such?”

* * *

“He goes to conquer the natural mana font.”

Kalia narrowed her eyes, wonder sweeping through here even as she stared with some consternation at Gwenvair, “This is… a mana font? You call it such?”

“Yes? These are mana fonts? We spoke of these before. Your clan has some, no?”

Kalia shook her head rapidly while staring around them, “This is no mana font.”

Mana swelled wildly, swirling around her and Kalia glanced with startled concern before calming as no meaningful intent presented itself. Then she realized what she was feeling, having experienced it before as the mana swelled then washed out across their party.

* * *

“This is no dungeo…” mana swelled and Gwenvair looked up with some wonder as it swept in then meaning came to her, understanding settling within her mind.

“This is no mana font.” Mana font? Interesting… I do…

“What is a mana fo…”

“What is a dung…”

Kalia and Gwenvair spoke at the same time before both cut off and Gwenvair waved Kalia on to continue.

Kalia, however, insisted, “Please, you may ask first, Queen.”

Gwenvair took the offer with a nod, “What is a mana font?”

Kalia frowned slightly before nodding, “You … do not have such, or… hmm,” she interrupted her thoughts and continued to answering the question instead, “It is a natural welling of great mana. From it, creatures and monsters naturally reside and often are forced out, escaping from other stronger and greater monsters. Treasures and wealth abound within such, but often are guarded by the monsters there. Fonts draw monsters in from far and wide, but their greatest treasure is that which has been steeped within the font for lengthy amounts of time, whether plant or animal, monster or beast. Often, fonts are a source of great fecundity depending upon the mana swelling from the well there.”

“It creates beasts and monsters?”

“No. Not like… this… thing.”

Gwenvair frowned, “This dungeon?”

“Yes. It… apologies, Queen. But what is a dungeon.

Gwenvair frowned at that ashes looked at Kalia, “It’s… a dungeon. I am uncertain how else to describe it.”

Kalia frowned herself, “I am assuming you do not keep your prisoners here? How is the dungeon creating … or bringing forth so many new creatures for us to fight?”

Gwenvair knit her eyebrows, “No, we do not keep our prisoners here, and it is the nature of a dungeon to create creatures and defend itself from intruders.”

Kalia seemed shocked by that, taken aback even as Xylarnae started, surprised. Xylarnae did not speak, but Kalia quickly jumped in.

“This… is a creature? We are inside a creature?”

Gwenvair grinned at that but with hints of concern roiling within, “You do not have dungeons? That… I find that quite interesting, but … I am uncertain if it is a creature. There are some who argue it is so and others say it is simply the natural interaction of mana. I do not know. I am no scholar.”

Kalia frowned, then shook her head, “No mana on any plane I have been has interacted to create such things.”

Gwenvair frowned at that, “Truly?”

Kalia nodded, “Truly. These are… unnatural.”

Gwenvair shrugged, “There are many available for use… there are four in this city alone. We are not a great clan, but we are quite lucky to have four.”

Kalia nodded, “It is… interesting.”

The two then quickly fell into a long conversation about dungeons where Gwenvair ultimately had almost nothing to teach Kalia, her questions delving too deeply into attempting to understand their purpose and origins, which Gwenvair knew very little of. Despite that, it helped distract her from the time Joe was away. But before her worry could even really grow, Joe returned with his spear over his shoulder and a grin on his face.

“Right. Ready to head back?”

* * *

Joe took a look around the hallway when he entered and grinned, excitement coursing through him as the challenge before him began to settle in and he prepared to fight. Nothing really seemed to have changed when he stepped in but he found the room empty without any of the monsters he was expecting. He grew concerned, looking around when a popup suddenly appeared before him. He narrowed his eyes as he stared at it, reading it carefully. Huh. Very interesting!

You control this dungeon. Do you wish to attempt to defeat it once again?

Huh… why? It didn’t do this with the advanced dungeon… why with… Confusion coiled through him as he considered his options even while struggling to understand why there was a difference between the advanced dungeon and this one. He allowed his thoughts to wrestle with it for a time, more focused on struggling to understand the difference than really make a choice, but after about five minutes of getting nowhere, he returned to his original purpose. Hmm… should I … just do what I need to and … wait… titles are always good. I’ll get another… six titles here… yeah… worth it. Uh… wait…

Joe grinned and pulled out several of his weapons and shields from his magic bag, leaning his spear against a pillar at his side within easy reach as well as placing other weapons against other pillars around the room. He thought for a moment then pulled out his second spear as well, leaning it on the pillar right next to the first spear. He then pulled out his bow and several arrows, also leaning them up against the pillar next to his spears before he pulled one last arrow and set it to the string. He grinned.

Yes, I wil… ooh! Wait!

Joe interrupted his thoughts and quickly rethought his preparations by sending out his mana points to all his weapons, especially the piercing ones by putting a point at the tip of each of his weapons’ points. For the slashing weaponry, he considered for a moment then placed three points along the edge of each weapon. Maybe it’ll work sorta like the spears and arrows? Push the point into the sword when the edge hits skin… although… if it’s not perfectly on, then the points will just be pushed to the side, right? He frowned at that, spending some time to figure out how he might fix that, but found himself stymied and decided to move on. The fight was something he’d been able to do before without too great of a difficulty.

Yes. I wish to attempt it again.

The six monsters formed before him, coming into existence out of nowhere from a cloud of mana that suddenly came rushing in when he had agreed to fight again. The mana clouded into existence from nowhere, forming at six places. It spilled in from a single location then seemed to spread outward much like rather oversized gas particles. Joe knit his eyebrows, watching closely out of curiosity, but the mana seemed to just pour out and fill up the space. The space it filled seemed rather sphere like until enough spilled in and Joe noticed it was filling up a space shaped much like a… Oh… right…

He glanced at the six points of mana and quickly recognized the shapes they were filling. The initial shape he’d been looking at had been a sphere, and that made sense if it was the slime. The others took on various humanoid shapes, continually filling with mana, compressing ever tighter and tighter until suddenly the mana seemed to reach some kind of critical density and the mana snapped into physical existence. The moment was instant. There was nothing but mana. Then there were six monsters before him. Joe sighed deeply to see the magic at work, a small grin forming on his face. Wow… just… so cool!

The hobgoblin snarled and Joe looked up to see the hobgoblin pointing at him. Joe blinked and prepared. Right… dumb. Quick and easy first. He pulled up his bow and aimed down the long hallway. Joe grinned and lined up his arrow and double checked the mana point prepared to infuse his arrow head.

He took in the field and quickly saw what he was looking for. The slime was crunching down, preparing to leap directly at him and Joe smiled at that. It currently sat at the furthest from him, down the hallway and across it as well. If it leapt, it would leap in front of every one of its allies and cross in front of them. He picked out the hobgoblin king then aimed at it but waited for the slime to leap, keeping his eyes on the slime but his arrow targeting the line directly at the goblin king. Right… timing… His focus caused the slime to quiver and Joe grinned to see it. At least my focus is on it… and it’s the one that’s noticing. The slime paused with his focus and he quickly calmed himself, zeroing out his presence, although it really didn’t work as he just couldn’t put himself in the position of a hunter. Every one of his targets were not prey but enemy combatants and they’d all sighted him. Despite that, he calmed himself as much as he could and settled in.

The slime compressed once again and then he recognized the small flinch that rippled through the slime body as it compressed itself for the leap a tell Joe long learned to be aware of and in that moment, Joe was certain the slime would leap. He grinned. Time slowed and mana swept upward through his spine and into his brain. But he noticed none of it as his focus was on the slime so he could not see the mana swarming up into his brain, filling it as well as sweeping into his eyes, causing them to glow subtly.

The slime compressed, and Joe noticed each and every tiny movement. His breath whooshed from him, ever so incredibly slowly, but it was soon enough. His strength tightened ever so slightly on his bow string even as the bow steadied. Soon… soon… just… gotta judge the time… if I could…

The slime leapt and Joe knew exactly where the slime would be, its position so incredibly clear in his mind. He just… knew… the slime would be just there, but he waited just a microsecond too long then he slid his fingers from the arrow string as cautiously as he could. The bow string leapt forward, but also sighed in a slow press, moving with incredibly slow speed. Another arrow… But he held his position, waiting for the arrow to slip his string and finally the arrow rest on the bow itself. He then quickly slipped his bow to the left, but kept his left arm most up. Speed… fast! His left arm swept out slightly to his left but remained perfectly straight outward and ready for the next arrow. It wasn’t very smart for conserving energy, but all he really needed was six shots, ideally, although he was fairly certain that he’d be lucky to get three of the monsters before they closed and he had to fight. In the end, with only three or six shots, he wasn’t going to tire from holding up a bow for that long and speed was of greater importance.

He bent to the right slightly and snagged one of the arrows leaning against the pillar, carefully to only touch the one before snapping upwards to face the monsters at the other end of the hall. As before, his movement was so slow, but he didn’t change his plans, actually grateful for the ridiculous bullet time. Although… it’d be nice if I could move a bit faster… could get a bit more… Unbeknownst to him, mana swelled out again from his core, but this time leaping up and throughout his entire body. It streamed to his skeleton and into the muscles of his body, swelling and rushing into them all equally. Suddenly, his right arm leapt forward with greater speed but his feet slipped slightly for an odd reason, and Joe struggled to parse why. I’m … pretty set. Legs wide spread. Why did I… Right…stop. Six monsters! Joe quickly refocused and whipped an arrow back up to his string quickly. Time… no time… moving! His arrow set in his string and his arrow whipped back in front of him ready to fire. His eyes took in the monsters then blinked in stunned surprise. The slime was still in the middle of his leap, barely having left the ground.

Joe felt his mind whirl and struggle to understand what he was seeing. An odd disturbance between him and the monsters disturbed him and he focused on it then blinked in shock to see his first arrow still drifting lazily through the air. The feeling of perfect slow motion wasn’t really a surprise to him. He’d experienced it before, even back on Earth, if not quite so blatantly and obvious as here. It was more that he’d plucked another arrow from his sheath and had another shot ready while the first arrow was still in the air.

Again, this also wasn’t a surprise. He’d heard stories of amazing archers, his sister’s capabilities and love for the weapon always came out in interesting stories around the dinner table. It was one such story that always stuck with him. Hiawatha, if the rumors were true, could fire ten arrows into the air before the first hit the ground. Of course, this was with the phenomenal Indian warrior and chief firing almost straight up into the air. Amazing archers could get close to an arrow a second, even from the quiver. Of course, aiming or actually hitting a target was another matter, but this had felt remarkably different. He was set and even now struggling to think about how it had all happened and despite that felt he could line up another shot with utter ease.

Joe breathed, and did exactly that, firing another arrow lined up with another monster, the goblin king this time, but all his intentions on the slime still. He double checked the mana point on the arrow point and then settled, prepared. Breathe… breath… NOW! The arrow shot like a bullet from his bow, sliding off the string and arrow shelf almost ten or twenty subjective seconds later. He grinned. Gonna just miss the slime… but…

Joe willed another arrow into his hand, this time pulling it from his magic bag space. It settled in a bit oddly, his hand not anywhere near the feathers but he simply tossed the arrow into the air and his hand snapped out and caught it easily before whipping it up and onto the string, almost before he could recognized what he was doing. His feet slipped again, and he frowned, wondering why he wasn’t correctly set. It wasn’t enough to disrupt his firing, so dismissed it, but wondered quite a bit about the whole thing. Later… later!

When his focus was back on the line of monsters again, two arrows were in the air and headed towards the goblin king and hobgoblin king; both the greatest threats to his mind. No… no… no threats… just focus on the slime! The slime was beginning to wobble in consternation, ripples erupting around its center even as he noticed a visible increase in the speed of rotation within the slime core’s body. It whipped itself to a frenzy rotational movement even as a bulge formed on its front arc in the direction of its leap.

Gonna try to slow down, huh? But … still moving the same, so… given it’s current trajectory… He timed another shot, this time aiming for the mukfrog since it was the only one really still lined up to allow his arrow to be fired while he could ‘direct’ his ‘killing intent’ upon the slime and allow the arrow to slip through and hit the mukfrog with a mana point right on its tip. He paused, waiting slightly, then released the arrow perfectly on time. Slime’s gonna alter its path anyway, so… It’s freaking out from all the attention I’ve put on it… but… He calmed himself to nothing, feeling nothing, before turning to look at the three enemies he’d accidently shot a… No… didn’t shoot at them… did nothing… I’ve been shooting at the slime! His eyes slid over the other monsters. Just checking… need to evaluate my enemies while I focus on the slime… He saw the others all charging directly forward, no concern or effort beyond to get to him as quickly as possible.

His hand whipped down and grabbed another arrow, even faster than his previous two attempts now that he was so used to doing it, and it was back up and set in his string as he took in his last three targets. He grinned and slighted down his arrow then frowned, looking down to see his arrow had bent slightly. Wait… really? That’s… He focused on it a bit more and realized it really had bent slightly and he grew even more curious. How… how is this… no… focus!

Joe un-nocked the arrow and simply let it fall to the ground as his hand blurred down and grabbed another arrow, but this time he was a bit more cautious in how he moved it up and nocked it to his string. It was slower, and only his right foot slipped slightly this time and Joe’s curiosity got the better of him. Am I really… moving so fast? That… seems… But then he focused on the three arrows in flight in front of him, each arrow only about ten or so meters behind the other, he didn’t know whether to grin or frown. He didn’t know if he should grin because he was like a little kid discovering he had super powers or frown because his curiosity and desire to know warred with his inability to understand. No… lets … kill the monsters first.

Joe set his sight for another shot and felt his eyebrows rise when he watched the slime finally change its trajectory. The bubble at the front split off and carried the rotation the slime had worked up within its internal body. The tiny bit of itself it ejected wasn’t enough to do much, but it did set it to shifting slightly off the arrows he’d already fired, nocking it up just a bit higher in the air and quite a bit slower. Joe grinned when he realized it would pass in front of the snow. Nice! His next arrow settled in, aiming for the slime while he pointed his arrow directly at the snow. He double checked the mana point and waited, timing it for when the slime would pass before the snow. And, like the others, he simply waited to fire it just a bit too soon or too late while making sure to very carefully keep his attention on attempting to hit the slime and nothing else.

This time, Joe’s excitement got the better of him and the slime reacted immediately when his point settled into the arrowhead although he hadn’t fired yet. Crap! Well… wasn’t aiming for the slime anyway, so… this works, but… The slime began adding to the spin it already had, but now in the plane perpendicular to its forward movement towards Joe and perpendicular to the plane of the floor as well. It slowly began adding spin that would have it ultimately rolling directly towards the hobgoblin king if it added enough spin. Joe grinned while he waited.

The slime had almost got to its position when Joe fired off another arrow and he grinned. Perfect! The arrow was on its way and he glanced at the snow with glee then cursed when he saw the snow flinch. Oh… crap! That’s… no… no no no! Bad…

The snow began drifting slightly out of line with the arrow shot and Joe grimaced even as he tried to calm himself and return to the blankness of the predator, simply waiting for its moment. The snow stuttered slightly and Joe chose to ignore it. Another arrow… still got the slime and spark to go… so… Joe frowned when he considered the spark. How is an arrow gonna hit… no… never mind… let’s just…

His hand dipped to the pillar and pulled up another arrow and then he calmed and waited. He couldn’t do much else but watch. The arrows drifted lazily through the air while the slime was once again desperately attempting to dodge the last arrow Joe had sent at it. It was now firing another blob out of itself and it looked to become a much bigger one, it’s bubble forming directly at the top and just slightly forward. Huh… gonna shoot its way down? He pondered a bit more, drifting his bow and arrow back and forth across the monsters left to fight, including the snow as well since it seemed to be trying to dodge.

Still can do it without the slime as my patsy… But can’t let anything slip… just … He lined up on the spark with an arrow with a mana point resting at its tip and kept himself blank, simply focused on releasing the arrow. His fingers released before Joe even realized it, and the arrow slipped from the string and then a few long agonizing moments later over the arrow rest. His hand blurred down then returned slower to his bow, lining up with the slime and then dipped his arrow downwards. Fire… NOW!

Joe’s hand whipped out for another arrow but he looked up to see all his arrows in flight, all targeting and ready to strike, but drifting ever so slowly through the air. Joe frowned. Huh… guess I’m going to have to wai…

Time leapt forward, surprisingly quick and Joe blinked in surprise when all the arrows seemed to strike almost all their targets almost at the exact same time. Joe woofed out a surprised gasp, shocked at what he’d done. Holy! That… oooooh. He ended with a long slow sigh of joy. The first three shots hit perfectly, center of mass and they all fell to the ground writhing in pain as his mana wreaked havoc inside them. The snow was clipped just off center, it’s attempt at dodging proving inadequate and it took the hit hard, spinning off while spasming wildly in pain. They all collapsed to the ground, pretty much dead; the humanoids all curling up in some semblance of a fetal curl from the pain.

The spark, however, drifted lazily forward, continuing without concern and care. What? How did… oh! Idiot! His eyes turned to the arrow behind the spark, spinning off wildly as it bounced of the stone wall. Joe winced. Well… there goes that arrow… probably. He didn’t notice if it had bent or not, but the mana point on the tip was obvious to him through some kind of sense and it hadn’t gone into the arrow head. No body to push it in? I guess? So… non-corporeal bodies have an extra defense… or… huh.. I wonder… Joe blinked, turning to the slime as it wildly reacted to his attack.

The slime had erupted its bulge upwards, just as Joe had thought, and the bit of slime it shot from itself sprayed across the roof when it disconnected from the slime’s main body and lost cohesion. However, it had also seemed to have sprayed another wild blob of itself to Joe’s right, pushing the slime just enough out of range of his arrow strike, the arrow skipping off the ground and skidding across the floor.

The slime hit the ground and reoriented on Joe. Joe watched. The slime did its leap at him and Joe let it. Time slowed even as mana swept up into his body, mind, and into his eyes again. Need it a bit closer… but… It wasn’t going to pass in front of the spark so Joe took a couple steps to the side until he had the two line up and then prepared his aim again. Time slowed even more as he brought his arrow up and Joe grinned. Right… got this. His arrow didn’t release until the slime leapt once more and this time Joe waited for it to be on its way back down before timing the shot to slip in under the slime and hit the spark directly behind it. Of course, he loaded it with a mana point this time but focused only on the slime, loosing the arrow just a split second too slow so it would pass just over the slime. Joe grinned and pulled out another arrow, nocked it, and had it on the slime but kept mana point on its tip instead. He also made sure to keep his thoughts blank, and simply prepared, calming himself and melding into his surroundings in ever greater measure as quickly as he could.

Time began speeding up again and his arrow slid through the air, still way too slowly. It pierced the spark which screamed in electric pain much like it did when grounded but the arrow continued to pass on through the spark. Joe ignored the slime, now curious about the spark and saw the arrow continue on through. It didn’t matter though, because by the time the arrow had passed through, the spark had already inverted upon itself and the sparking of its electrical body had collapsed back in on itself in an almost black hole like visual before nothing but a small poof of electrical smoke was left behind. Joe winced when his arrow sparked off the wall behind it. Man… I hope that arrow’s still OK! That’s two… maybe three now!

He turned his attention back to the slime, his arrow still pointed directly at it, but his mind as still as possible even as he focused on melding into the surroundings He waited patiently for it to leap another two times to come into range before Joe finally felt time slow once again when it began its final assault leap directly for him. The slime leapt, its compression rings around its body taking shape and warning Joe of its leap, and then it was in the air, coming directly for his face. Joe grinned. Too easy!

He checked the mana point one last time the released the arrow. It leapt from the string at almost the exact same time. Joe dropped his arms, this time allowing them to fall in slow motion as well, the mana swarming into his muscles and bones evaporating without him really realizing it as he breathed a deep sigh of joy. Man… that… is way too easy. No wonder they all infuse. It’s the ‘I win’ button. It’s just… nuts! His mind relaxing as he grinned and allowed his joy and certainty to begin welling within him.

The slime reacted immediately, desperately attempting to redirect itself but the attempt proved futile as his arrow slammed into the slime’s body before it could even begin a rotation and form a bulge where it would eject a portion of its mass. Joe felt his breath catch in fascination when he saw his mana point get pressed into the arrow, then wildly erupt with mana as it streamed into the slime’s body as soon as it pierced the skin of the slime’s body. The mana streamed in then wildly struck directly at the core. The mana moved a bit like lightening, struggling to find the shortest path through the internal mana structure of the slime straight to the core. But it also didn’t move like lightening as it didn’t have the odd jagged sharp angled movements and turns. The mana flowed like water or a watery snake, twisting and guiding itself to the mana core where it struck it like a ram hitting the door of a castle. The core itself vibrated like it had been hit with a hammer. The vibrations grew ever more, wilder and chaotic, the core almost seeming to discombobulate and rapidly changing sizes within each vibration before it suddenly shattered and vanished into nothing.

Joe chuckled, awed by what he’d seen the mana do even as the slime’s body lost all cohesion and began to spray outwards from where the slime had died, coming straight for him.

Ooooooh CRAP! Joe leapt to the side wildly, tumbling with wild abandon to tumble back behind one of the pillars. The slime splattered across the walls and floor around him and Joe slowly allowed his legs to slide out and down to the ground since he’d pulled them up tight against his body as he crouched at the base of the pillar. He lay there for a time, huffing for a bit before finally standing and stepping out to see the hallway clear of the dungeon bosses and the dungeon award already awaiting him at the end. He gathered all his scatted equipment that he’d ultimately not needed, disconnecting points and popping them all back into his magic bag inventory. He didn’t get the arrows yet, but walked up quickly to both sit on the throne and take a look at the dungeon loot real quick. He frowned, then just decided to grab something real quick, choosing a sword for Kalia to use so he could get his weapon back. Nice… ok… maybe a weapon or two for Stephliquen and Xylarnae.

He then wandered around the hallway, picking up all his arrows and inspecting them carefully. All of them but three turned out to be fine, while one of the last three had Joe hopeful that it was still good as well, but would require more careful inspection. He put that one in a separate slot in his magic bag inventory with the two bent arrows in another slot by themselves. Guess bent arrows are considered the same thing… close enough to stack. That’s nice.

Joe then turned to the dungeon and touched it. Joe blinked in surprise when some coin appeared before him and he picked it up. Huh… wonder where this came fro… Ooh… the tax. Huh… He wasn’t sure what to really think of that for a bit before he finally just took it and deposited it in his coin pouch for later. He wasn’t here for that anyway. He had something much better planned. He tried to ask for a display like the advanced dungeon had done, but somehow, this dungeon didn’t seem to respond in the same way, and Joe frowned. Huh… so… not related to the system… and each dungeon is unique? Or… strange. Joe’s thoughts wandered for a bit before he finally sighed and wrangled his thoughts back under control and did what he came to do. About ten minutes later, Joe headed back out with a jaunty grin, excited with one more object in his magic bag space but now with a rather hard deadline. That was a lot easier! Only needed to pump in a bunch of mana for a time extension… heh!

He headed to the door and pushed his way on out. The others were outside chatting with one another and they all stopped to stare up at him with surprise. Joe grinned.

“Right. Ready to go?”

Gwenvair proved the most shocked, while the other two simply nodded and Joe led them all back. They made it back to the first floor with ease then back to the corner where Joe slaughtered the goblins for a bit longer until all of them had reached level twenty in metropolitan.

By the time they made it outside, it was quite past sunset. Their late leaving was exacerbated by Joe having them all wait until another group was ready to leave, which had them waiting another half hour or so. But by following up behind them and then closing with them right when they got to the entrance, Joe and the others were able to mingle as a rather large group and slip out through the dungeon barrier walls.

Granted, Joe wasn’t certain his strategy was really that effective, but it was still better than nothing and when he did make it out, he cautiously looked around and found the guards rather bored. He wasn’t the first out, so wasn’t certain if they’d been any more interested in who was leaving, but by the time he got out, the guards were already turning to speak with one another again. Joe kept his head down, but pretended to speak exuberantly with the others while Gwenvair proved much more natural with her conversation.

The made it out into the streets and Joe continued walking with them for a time before turning to Gwenvair about half way to their old inn. They slowed in the middle of the dark and empty streets but Joe kept them moving because he didn’t want to raise any suspicions. He did want to have a talk about where they were going, however.

“Gwenvair. Did we leave anything at the inn?”

Gwenvair paused at that, considering, “I didn’t. All I have is what I have on,” she ended with some sadness.

Joe sighed with a bit of chagrin, “I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that, I just want to move to another inn. I don’t think it’s a good idea that we stay here.”

Gwenvair quickly nodded, “That’s fine. Probably wise. Kalia? Xylarnae? Did you leave anything back at the inn?”

Xylarnae quickly shook her head no while Kalia simply snorted. Joe grinned.

“Then let’s head to another place. I don’t want to stay somewhere that your brother might know of.”

Gwenvair stutter stepped at that then nodded, “That … is probably wise.”

Joe nodded, “Then do you know of a place your alter ego might recommend?”

Gwenvair looked up at him with some confusion before realization hit and she quickly nodded, “Yes. I believe I know a good place. It will not be… an enjoyable one.”

Joe huffed, “Will they have food and a bed?”

Gwenvair grinned, “They have something they call food. The bed is pretty good, though.”

Joe laughed and shook his head, “Great. Then let’s stop by the baths before heading there.”

Gwenvair nodded with relief, “That would be enjoyable.”

They all headed to the bath although Kalia sighed a bit and Joe turned to her with confusion.

“You don’t like bathing?”

Kalia shook her head with a snort, “I prefer cleanse or wash or any other much better cleaning options. Bathing with water is… so mortal.”

Joe cocked an eyebrow at that and dropped it, although he did make a mental note of the fact that there seemed to be other ways, likely magical ways, to clean and wash up. And it only makes sense… I wonder. Hmm.

The bath was pretty much empty when they got there, and a tired and lonely girl waved them on through. They bathed quickly, at Joe’s request, and then headed back out, Gwenvair now leading them deeper into the poorer parts of the town. They went deeper and deeper into the depths of the poorer part of town until Gwenvair turned down a darker smaller street that wasn’t quite an alley but wasn’t really a street either.

She led them all to a small doorway in what looked like a single floor small building and Joe grew concerned. Gwenvair knocked on the door and had a whispered conversation with someone inside when a small window in the door opened to allow the two to speak. Joe wasn’t able to hear anything, oddly, but Joe didn’t push it. They were in a dodgy part of town and likely the person would be quite skittish.

After a few moments, the door opened and Joe found himself inside a rather decent courtyard villa that, while a bit small and plain, was clean. The plain but well-kept nature of the place was something Joe found pretty appealing. The man inside led them to another small room which turned out to be a small living room with a connected dining room and kitchen. Off to the side, there were several doors leading to private rooms and Joe found the situation very pleasant. Joe sighed, collapsing on one of the nice comfortable chairs in the living room. The others all joined him there and Joe found himself drifting in thought, exhaustion quickly claiming him.

A meal came, the groundskeeper apologizing for the poor fair, but Joe didn’t notice it at all, wolfing down the food in exhaustion. They all ate mostly in silence, although Gwenvair, Kalia, and Xylarnae all had a quiet conversation between the three of them. After their meal was done, they mostly collapsed back into silence and Joe soon found his eyes drifting. He fought it off for a time, turning back to Gwenvair and calling her forward. Kalia and Xylarnae bid them good night, with Stephliquen following after them, seemingly tired as well. Gwenvair turned to Joe.

“Yes?”

Joe grinned, struggling to keep his eyes open, “I wanted to talk about this… slavery thing.”

Gwenvair frowned, “It is not… wise to do so. You saw what happened to you.”

Joe nodded, “I didn’t really. It was hard to do it, but… would you be willing to show me?”

Gwenvair struggled and Joe noticed her recalcitrance, “If you don’t want to, I can understand. Really.”

Gwenvair relaxed with that, turning her worry to careful inspection while she searched his eyes before finally sighing, “You think to… to…”

Gwenvair did something, then slowly lost focus, growing dazed and lost in an almost drug induced haze, if Joe were to guess, before slowly coming back to awareness and staring at Joe with growing fear.

“What did I… no! Don’t tell me… don’t.”

Joe grimaced. Can’t even think about escape? That seems a bi… wait. I’m thinking about it fine right now. Escape! Freedom! Destroy this freakin’ slave collar. Magic it… Joe’s mind shattered and his entire body jittered even as low groan hissed out. Right… magic … gotta remember that… figure out…

“So, can’t talk about escap…” Joe felt his mind hallowing out, a haze forming over him and he slammed against it in a rage, “I… will… escape… someh…”

The haze washed over him and his thoughts scattered to the wind and after a few moments he found Gwenvair looking at him with concern and Joe grimaced.

“Right. Got the hint. Keep it in my mind. Don’t let it…” Joe’s thoughts skipped a beat and he quickly pulled out his notepad and pencil. He quickly wrote down his intentions, preparing a goal sheet. I will find a way to escape and free all of them! He wrote it down easily, then read it, then began to grin. Right… can’t talk about it… but I can still make plans… and share… So… first thing I noticed… get stronger… easy enough, if annoying… but…Joe glanced over at Gwenvair and saw her staring down at his scribbling with some confusion. Oh… can’t plan together, but with this… Joe grinned.

“OK. Gwenvair. Let’s teach you more about reading. I showed you numbers this morning. Let’s go through this first, and fast. These are the easy ones. And, if you get this, you can look at what this says without any problem.” Although… gotta make a Common alphabet… so… just… make it simple and hmm… don’t wanna do Chinese… that would be a lot of memorization… maybe… alphabet… but if she sounds it out and the collar hears it… but… faster. His thoughts swirled before he decided to go with an alphabet using the English alphabet, something easiest for him, but repurposing it to match the sounds that people used to speak common. And get rid of any stupid doubling up of letters… why did we need a C and a K. Seriously? Just… Joe sighed and turned back to Gwenvair with a smile.

Gwenvair narrowed her eyes and Joe grinned, then nodded. She nodded back carefully and Joe grinned.

“Right. Numbers.”

For the next thirty minutes or so, Gwenvair quickly mastered numbers and was able to do so easily, her memory quite good from the morning practice. Opening her own status and being able to see the numbers really motivated her. Soon, Gwenvair was able to understand them and read them quite quickly and her excitement grew more and more when she began to be able to interpret her own system status with rapid ease. The numbers proved easy, and when he shifted to words and the alphabet, he had a moment of thought, struggling to figure out exactly what to do.

Given the galactic reach of the society and the knowledge that the galaxy didn’t seem to have writing, Chinese seemed like a powerful option. Single written language that works with any spoken language! A pictographic language which could be used for all peoples and languages regardless of the location would allow any language or people to learn the same written language. Just memorizing the pictograph and assigning their own verbal component to it would allow any spoken language to use the same written language and even communicate with one another if they both knew how to read and write. This is what China had done, consolidating hundreds of spoken languages into a single written language. Of course… they kinda force all languages to end up having the same grammar, but…yeah…

The downside, however, was the cost in learning. The written Chinese language required learning a single symbol for pretty much every word in existence and a new word required a new picture to be made. There was also the issue with getting those symbols corralled in a useful manner to use with computing devices, if the galactic society ever made it to that stage. Although… China did figure it out… at a pretty big cost to their written skills and language… and… maybe magic could offer some help… Joe chewed on the idea for a bit before turning to Korean.

Korean was an incredibly powerful language, simply because it allowed an adult to learn to read it in a matter of a weak, possibly two for slow learners. Korean was incredibly simple because of its structure. However, the structure also heavily limited its spoken component. Many words that were possible in foreign languages were almost impossible to put into Korean or speak for Korean speakers since the written language was structured such that every consonant was required to include a vowel as well. Korean skirted this issue by creating a consonant that literally had no sound, allowing a word to have a string of vowels. However, since the written component actually wrote the syllables of the word itself as well, spoken Korean also tended to separate diphthongs into their own syllables. Korean also, because it required every consonant to have a vowel, created situations where consonants couldn’t easily be combined. This lead to words like straight or scrape to end up becoming five syllable words because the first three letters required their own vowel and could not be combined as a singular sound. Korean was incredibly easy and quick to learn, but its written aspect also heavily constrained the spoken word as well.

And English. Joe sighed, shaking his head with a groan. Incredibly powerful but just so… stupid with exceptions. Wish I could… Joe blinked, then grinned. Right… it really is just two options then… I can take the benefits of Korean and apply them to the English alphabet… strip out all the stupid exceptions and make all letters equal exactly one sound… maybe allow some vowel variability with two vowels combined… as long as it is always the same and follows the same rules… that… that would work! OK. So… then Chinese or not stupid English. And… Joe pondered other options for an alphabet of the other languages he knew. Indonesian, or bahasa, would be an excellent option to follow, as it simply used the English alphabet but normalized the sound symbol parings to a single sound simply to make it easier instead of having two or three sounds per symbol. He could copy from that for a bit. Thai and Cambodian languages were difficult in their own right, having many symbols in their alphabet.

In the end, while he could read the other languages, his skill in English just made him more comfortable. The three main ones he felt he might be able to legitimately consider, English, Korean, and Chinese, narrowed themselves to English or Korean rather quickly simply because he didn’t know enough of the Chinese written symbols to be able to offer them on to the people here. And he wasn’t even sure what he could do if he found an entire new concept or word. He would have to make up a new symbol out of nowhere, which was just a bad idea for future students the worl… heh… the galaxy over! Woah… ok… Maybe just… start with some ideas first? I’ll think more carefully about this… but English would just be… easier… I could take a page from Bahasa and Korean… artificially limit each letter to a specific sound… make the vowels only one sound… use vowel combos to create diphthongs or other vowels if needed but normalize them to always be spelled the same way so they’re not crazy… That’s…

Chinese… is a hard… hard language to learn… tough and for the wealthy… so… and yeah… Kalia seemed to be pretty blunt about the poverty level of the rest of the galaxy… gonna want a really simple and very easy language for them… the rich are already happy with the crystals… and… Joe sighed, admitting to himself that ultimately, with the way Kalia explained things, the crystals really did seem quite superior to reading and writing. Instantaneous information transference with one hundred percent competency and absorption was a powerful advantage. Taking twenty years to become a doctor versus a single moment with a crystal and being just as competent as the doctor studying twenty years... yeah… not going to replace crystals any time soon… but… a crystal for every person in the galaxy… that seems impossible… at least the way Kalia seemed to describe things… So… yeah… easy, direct, and singular pairings… let’s fix English!

Joe’s thoughts recapped one last time, realizing and knowing full well the weight of the decision he was making at this moment. So… definitely not Chinese, too long to learn, let alone having to deal with technology and the artificial limit of keyboards later. But for alphabetic languages… English is more free flowing and flexible… Korean is really cool, intrinsically including syllables in spelling construction… but limited because of that in the number of letters it can have in a single syllable. But… yeah… let’s go with flexibility but also revamp the English alphabet to be a bit more like Bahasa in Indonesia or Malaysia, only having a singular sound per letter in each unique situation… but now… OK.

“Just a minute, Gwenvair, I need to…” Joe trailed off and began sounding out various words in common, trying to parse through the sounds he heard as he spoke until he had a decent idea of the breadth of sounds used in the common language. He then began babbling words in common and assigning sounds to the letters. He easily found most of the vowels, which English alphabetic vowels could, for the most part, cover rather naturally allowing most English speakers to be able to read common easily as well. At least for vowels… gotta see how consonants go. He did completely revamp the English sound to English alphabet scheme, however, removing all sounds but one from each vowel and shifting any extra vowel sounds to combinations of vowels, with each combination linked to only one sound. Let’s make it much easier to learn reading… Yeah! I can FIX English! Ha!

Joe’s mind raced, already removing duplicate sounds from the alphabet, copying Bahasa by removing the letter ‘c’ from the alphabet as a duplicate ‘k’ or ‘s.’ He then changed its sound to equal ‘ch’ thus removing the need to create words with a ‘ch,’ exactly as Bahasa had done. He also removed ‘q’ as an utterly useless letter, but saved it for other possible sounds. His mind quickly considered options and had to force himself to stop as he was getting way to distracted. Just focus on finding the sounds already… vowels are kinda… well… got a preliminary round done, let’s do consonants now.

Making sure each sound was uniquely linked to only a single alphabet letter or a unique combination of letters proved easy enough, and he shifted to assigning consonants to their matching English alphabetic consonants as well. He focused on finding the most common sounds first, using up the letters in a random hodgepodge and had to end up writing the list of letters at the top of the page and cross them out as he used them. He ended up having to add another list below it of combination consonants that he linked to a new sound as well when the sounds seemed to match a combination of two other consonants. This proved less obvious than with vowels, but he did find a couple that made sense, such as a combined S T sound, like in ‘stop,’ that English also had.

Despite all that, he still only got about a third of the alphabet used up before deciding that was enough to get Gwenvair going for now. Interestingly, he found the J sound missing, but decided to leave the J symbol for later in case it came up. Although… Garn… His mind lurched and tears welled up slightly, lining the bottom edge of his eyelids as Gwenvair reached up to rest a hand on his shoulder. He smiled down at her, the pain softening and he sighed deeply, then deliberately continued the thought. Garnedell did have a hard time with my name… if I remember right… called me Zhoe…not Joe… or something. A heavy Z … aspirated…. With an H in there somewhere? Maybe I can just give that to Z… gotta check if there are multiple ‘Z’ sounds… but… yeah.

Joe took a deeper, full lung capacity breath, not quite a sigh, and then ended it with a small smile directed towards Gwenvair. She grinned back up at him, seemingly in quite a good mood as well and his grinned shifted to a smirk punctuated with a chuckle. Her smile grew and Joe nodded and then turned back to his notebook.

“OK. Let’s do this now.”

Gwenvair’s smile remained although she grew serious and nodded, “What?”

“You’ll see!” Joe replied with a grin before continuing, “So. These ten symbols represent numbers, right?”

Gwenvair quickly nodded when Joe pointed to numbers on his notepad but said nothing and Joe continued.

“Well, there are also symbols that represent sounds. With these symbols, you can recreate a sound or set of sounds and thus recreate any word.”

Gwenvair stared at Joe with some consternation, “You spoke of this with Kalia… this reading.”

Joe nodded, “This is a longer and much slower way to learn, but the benefit is that after I have written this out, this can be read by an infinite number of other people and this paper will … well… I guess it will wear out with time, but… it functionally has a much greater number of uses and with a printing press, copies are … you know what… this is getting way out of line. Let’s focus. So. Let’s start easy.”

Joe then began putting down symbols and showing Gwenvair what sound each symbol represented. He kept it very simple and chose a very easy short common word of only three sounds. The word itself was short and easy and one of the most basic words to exist the Earth over, and appeared to be also basic in common as well. It was the word ‘is’ which, when Joe sounded out, sounded like ‘ne’ with the ‘e’ being the equivalent of the short ‘e’ in English. He first described all the letters he’d made, first. Then reviewed them a second time, pointing them out and prodding her to sound out the letter, but making sure to save the ‘n’ and ‘e’ for last.

He then wrote out the word ‘ne’ out on a paper and pointed at it, but didn’t say anything. She stared up at him, then looked at the two letters before pronouncing them, although without connecting them in a meaningful way. He let her struggle with it a few more times, prodding her to speak faster and connect the letters together. When she got it, he smiled and nodded. As with most people learning to read, focusing on the individual sounds had her failing to see the forest for the trees, and all she heard was two meaningless sounds. He had to point it out to her and when he did, her eyes widened and she grinned, easily pronouncing the word, more as a sight word now, than actually sounding out the letters.

Over the next hour, Joe would write out some words using the symbols he already had then have her read it. The sweet spot seemed to be about a three or four letter word, although for the three letter words, a consonant-vowel-consonant combination was best for her to easily grasp the word she’d sounded out. Every ten or so minutes, he would review the sounds of each letter again before writing another simple word down. By a half an hour, she was enthusiastically enjoying the lesson, especially when he was able to write out common word for ‘speed’ which turned out to be a simple three letter word and when that was done, he had her open her status to see if there was any difference as well as to let her notice.

It took him a bit himself to find it, simply because he still read English even though he spoke common. Still, his eyes darted down the list to find a single static word in her list of attributes and grinned to see her speed stat now with a defined unchanging word, the English letters easily drawing his eyes. He didn’t say anything for a bit, simply grinning then nodded at her status.

“Look at your status list again.”

She did, running a finger down the numbers and Joe redirected her focus.

“Look here. Read down this list here,” Joe pointed to the attribute names.

She slowly read down the list, the morphing shapes distracting the eye easily until she hit the speed attribute and paused, seeming to have noticed the unchanging static nature of the words. She stared at it a bit, then glanced between his notebook and her status with surprise before leaning in with joy, sounding out the word then shouting with great surprise again when she figured it out, looking at Joe.

Joe grinned, but Gwenvair couldn’t constrain herself and threw herself at Joe to embrace him. Joe chuckled but Gwenvair was too excited to remain still, soon standing and wandering around the room with barely constrained shouts of astonishment and joy. This reignited her focus and they continued on for another hour or so more, but she soon began flagging and Joe decided to call an end to the day, but wanted to go out with a bit of a bang and spelled out a very long word for Gwenvair.

He had her pronounce her name carefully a couple of times, first, to make sure he caught all the sounds before he went through the letters in his mind as he heard her name, then began teaching her the sounds in her name. He started with the ‘g’ and moved on from there, and she quickly grasped what was happening. By the end of her name, her brilliant smile had returned, and she spent some effort reading out her name before smiling up at him with great joy.

Joe grinned down at her, “OK. Try this.”

Joe wrote out her last name this time, the Galgandar a bit easier to write down.

“What is that?”

Joe’s grin widened, “Why don’t you try to say it faster and listen?”

She looked at him with some frustration and tried again, speaking faster and faster but still hadn’t really placed it.

Joe stopped her with a hand on her arm, “Close your eyes and say it and really listen.”

She said it exactly twice before suddenly coming to a stop and staring at him with shock shuddering through her before excitement jittered up her entire body.

“Galgandar!”

Joe grinned.

“Talking symbols. These are… really talking symbols!”

Joe’s grin turned to good humor, “That… is a very good way to think of these symbols… the alphabet.”

Gwenvair was ecstatic and shifted excitedly in her seat for a time, breathing her name while staring at the paper. She spent time on both her last and first name. Joe allowed her some time before having her pull up her status page, intending to point at her name at the top of her status sheet. However, Joe was distracted and blinked with some surprise to see some more of the crawling symbols on her page having been replaced with a few of the numbers she’d learned and Joe felt a bit of satisfaction to see it. OK… that’s… really nice!

He pointed to her name, which still was no longer scrawling morphing symbols and she struggled through it until it clicked and she understood it was her name. She looked up at him for confirmation and he smiled, nodding. Gwenvair took a moment to read it again before she exclaimed with a woosh.

“My name!”

Joe nodded, “Can you read the second part?”

Her last name, Galgandar, was after her first, and like the first, she quickly understood what she reading, completing it in a rush again before she looked up at Joe for confirmation. This time, Joe didn’t offer it, and just stared at her, and she struggled through it alone once again to verify. When she looked back up at him, he simply questioned back.

“You know what that says, right?”

“Galgandar! My clan.”

Joe’s grin grew.

“This is… amazing, but… it is not easy.”

“No. It is not. But don’t worry. This is something that takes a bit of time but you will learn it rather quickly. I’m trying to make sure it is quite… simplified so that it is easier… much easier than what I had to learn.”

Gwenvair’s smile trembled at that and she shook her head, “This is easier?”

Joe chuckled, “Much easier. But don’t worry. You can learn this.”

Gwenvair nodded and Joe then yawned massively. Gwenvair giggled and shook her head.

“It’s probably important to sleep.”

Joe ended the lesson there, also seeing her exhaustion and she then simply collapsed on the seat, seeming rather stunned by what she’d experienced, but still on a high, if exhausted. Joe joined her for a time before he sat forward, the desire to complete things driving him on.

He decided to make a ‘sound’ dictionary using the letters and matching them to an easy noun that started with that letter, drawing a picture of the noun next to a giant version of that letter. The night drew on, and soon she grew tired, heading off to bed while Joe continued. He finished off the picture sound dictionary for the set of sounds he did have, and set it aside.

Joe sighed then, and stood. Joe chose a different bedroom for the night, heading in to sleep. He collapsed into his bed, and struggled very hard to practice some, but he wasn’t able to be as diligent as he normal would have. Still, he got a few rounds of practice in before sleep claimed him and he fell into an exhausted sleep. His agitation and anger began to swell again, although his exhaustion knocked him out completely.

* * *

Thamnerlun sat outside the Galgandar hall with a stoic patience. He’d arrived quite early in the morning, and it was now late afternoon. He understood the ways of the nobles, but found his frustration growing, urged on by his ire. When the sun settled towards evening, Thamnerlun found his patience gone, and stood to leave. His short but powerful legs thumped down the hallway as he left and a servant quickly ran up to him.

“Master Dwarf. Please wait. The Patriarch will be ready soon.”

Thamnerlun stopped and stared at the servant for a bit, then simply grunted and turned away, resuming his exit from the clan audience hall. The servant ran along beside him.

“Please, master Dwarf. Please. He will be along…”

Thamnerlun held up a hand at the man, but the man did not stop talking so he interrupted, “Enough.”

“I… certainly, master Dwarf. But the Patriarch is desirous to meet… ahh! See! The Patriarch himself arrives to see you.”

Thamnerlun paused at that, his foot pausing in air before it shifted back and settled down beside his currently grounded foot. He turned to find a young whelp staring at him with a wide smile and an ingratiating gleam in his eye. A whelp is Patriarch?

“Patriarch.”

“Ah… yes. Master Dwarf. I am Patriarch Gunlan. It is a pleasure to meet you, Master…”

“Thamnerlun.”

“Ah. Yes. Thamnerlun. A great name. What is it you are seeking, master Dwarf Thamnerlun?”

“Life debt,” Thamnerlun’s abrupt bluntness left the whelp in some surprise, but he recovered quickly enough.

“A clan member owes you a life debt?”

Thamnerlun replied immediately, “No.”

The Patriarch blinked at him with some surprise, not speaking for a time before suddenly starting up again, “Ah… I guess you mean you own a life debt to my clan?”

Thamnerlun felt his lips turn down in a grimace when he saw the whelp’s greed shining through his eyes and Thamnerlun rapidly ended the man’s greedy hopes.

“No. Not clan.”

“You owe a life debt to another?”

“Hmm.”

“Ah… then… I am uncertain how this is applicable to my clan as we are not…”

“Find. Breeder curse breaker.”

The whelp blinked in some surprise, “I am uncertain that I am able to help…”

“Farewell,” Thamnerlun offered a miniscule nod of his head as a show of some deference and turned away, resuming his stumping walk out of the audience hall out into the clan’s holdings. The Patriarch quickly scrambled to his side, bowing quickly.

“I am more than willing to attempt to find him. If you could give me a month? Ah! No! A week! Maybe… maybe sooner?”

Thamnerlun paused at that, looking up at the Patriarch for a time before nodding and turning away, resuming his thumping stride, “One week.”

* * *

Gunlan watched the empowered dwarf thumping off into the horizon in the typical dwarven marching, punching the ground with their heels. He grimaced, angry, to some extent, but also eager. What boons will a dwarf offer! He turned away and raced back into the audience hall and his advisors. Let us hook a master dwarf! His grin was down-right avaricious.

* * *

Joe woke in the middle of the night alone, agitated for reasons he could not fathom leaving him jittery and unable to rest. His mind was spooked and he found himself driven to do something but cursed with the lack of knowledge of what exactly that as. He was able to tame that drive by practicing his mana exercises for a time, losing himself in it in hopes that he could exhaust himself back to sleep.

Despite his efforts, his agitation only grew and he soon found himself up and pacing in his room. His agitation only grew more, and his anger began climbing until he found himself struggling to keep himself silent so as to not bother any others sleeping but nothing he did kept his anger in check. Finally, he sought escape once again, and snuck out into the living room but that didn’t help him much at all and he soon felt a desperate need to flee.

He slipped out of the door and found himself wandering the streets. He was shocked when he stepped outside, surprised to find himself in the slums. That shock was enough to break him from his thoughts, and he stared around. He didn’t stay shocked long, his rage swamping through his heart once again while agitation ground through him and had his legs driving him out into the streets.

He didn’t understand why he had to go, nor what drove him, but he just couldn’t sit still. He didn’t know how long he wandered the streets, or how many shadows watched from hidden corners and dark alleys. He didn’t care. He just had to move. And finally, as he circled their new resting place, he calmed and turned his thoughts to his enslavement curse, turning his thoughts and efforts to freeing himself. Things went well, as long as he thought to himself, keeping it mostly to his thoughts and as long as he didn’t make any attempt to use mana while thinking of freeing himself. As soon as he thought of magic and freeing himself, pain swamped him and even as he attempted to push past the pain and force the issue, as soon as mana began expressing from his mana heart, pain unlike anything he’d felt shattered his attempt as he could only feel what felt like shards of glass erupting from his chest and out into the world.

He kept at this for quite some time until exhaustion finally returned, and he sought out his bed. He hadn’t given up, but he couldn’t continue now and he simply desired rest, both due to exhaustion and to the raw pain that echoed through his chest at a deeper metaphysical level, somehow almost as if his very soul had been rubbed raw. His return was less graceful, and he stumbled back almost like a drunkard.

When he made it back to their new resting quarters, the innkeeper who met him at the door very poorly hid his upset at having to be dragged awake late at night. So too was Gwenvair, who waited for him in agitation in the living room. She proved upset but ironically, having her in his arms calmed him more than all his agitated wanderings in the streets did and he soon found himself calm enough to sleep again. Gwenvair tried to go with him, even insisting, but Joe screwed up his will and rejected her offer, grateful for it but needing to be alone. His exhaustion and calm quickly had him collapsing into bed, and he was asleep even before he’d laid down.

* * *

Kainaro, slavemaster and hired man of Gunlan, Patriarch of the Galgandar, woke and prepared for the day. Time to go back… I’ve got all I need. He prepared all he needed and was ready to go well before noon. A call from a friend interrupted his plans and he found himself spending lunch and much of the afternoon with him. By the time he returned home, it was well into evening. He stared at his prepared belongings, a slight flutter stuttering through his body. He looked back outside, seeing the sun set and the deep darkness coming upon them. He ground his teeth. Maybe… tomorrow… yeah. The sun’s set. Not wise to leave so late at night.

Kainaro when back to his room and fell into a fitful sleep. I really do need sleep… yeah… sleep’s important.