Ember of Invention

Lindle looked between the two women in confusion. Observing their faces side by side he could see some resemblance, but between the raccoon mask on Thalia’s and wrinkles on Madam Holly’s, it was subtle.

Madam Holly had mentioned a husband on their first meeting, but with her personality, he had never considered she would be a mother, let alone a grandmother! Lindle looked at Thalia with a sudden burst of sympathy, the change in his expression causing both of them to look at him.

Thalia sighed, but Madam Holly’s smile grew even wider. The woman truly had no shame. She turned around and walked back to their fire. “Come! Join us for dinner.”

Lindle and Thalia exchanged looks before standing. “Thanks for the healing magic, and for coming to check on me.” He thanked her.

“It’s fine, I wouldn’t have known what to do with myself if I didn’t at least try to help. I still have nightmares about when she took me out for ‘survival training’. She shivered to herself.

"I mean, like I said, it sucked, but I wasn’t in any real danger… right?”

Thalia hesitated. “I mean, at least not any permanent danger?” She said that in a concerningly uncertain tone. “Permanent physical danger.” She said with a bit more confidence.

“That’s very reassuring. If it makes you feel better I think I’m past the worst of it.”

“Yeah, you said something about fighting a zmey?”

“Yeah. It was pretty rough, but Madam Holly crippled it before setting it loose on me.”

Thalia winced apologetically. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

Lindle waved her off. “You’ve already done your rite, this is all weird enough, but at least I want to pass it in a way that counts if I can’t do it normally.”

“I could’ve tried to convince her to do something a little less crazy than dragging you out into the mountains to fight a monster.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Successfully?”

She sighed. “Probably not. Honestly, it sounds like she was taking it easy on you. She picks people to mess with, or ‘train’ occasionally, usually only after they’ve gotten a few levels though. I’ve seen her do worse when she knows they can survive it.”

Thalia tilted her head in curiosity, a look of realization on her face. “Usually it has to do a lot more with their class though, I thought you wanted to be a crafter, an alchemist or something?”

Lindle and Thalia hadn’t been close enough for her to know about the troubles he had in getting said class, but everyone’s class goals had been public enough in their school group. He wasn’t going to be an alchemist anymore, but he wasn’t going to correct her about the assumption, everyone who knew about Artificer had decided that letting everyone believe he was going to be an Alchemist would be the easiest cover story.

“Pretty much. This is apparently a kind of test to see if I can ‘gather my own crafting materials.’

Thalia rolled her eyes. “Grandma can spin anything into a reason for fighting monsters. I’m pretty sure the only reason she decided to become an elder is so she can fight the Apexes every migration.”

That made sense, nothing about her had really seemed the wise leader type.

They started walking to the fire, where Madam Holly looked at them both cheerfully, popping more rations into her mouth. Lindle was certain if she had been able to sense and identify Thalia as she climbed up the cliff she had to have heard everything they had talked about, but Thalia didn’t seem concerned about it so Lindle didn’t comment on it.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time dear granddaughter, if I knew you wanted to come along to watch I would have brought you along with me, I’m sure Lindle wouldn’t have minded the extra weight.”

Thalia looked at him questioningly and Lindle sighed. “She made me carry her the entire way here.”

Thalia’s eyes light up in realization. “So that’s why there was only one set of tracks.”

Lindle paused and looked at Madam Holly in alarm. “You aren’t going to make me carry you and her back, are you? I’m almost out of Aura potions.”

Madam Holly slowly grinned and Lindle started to sweat before Madam Holly burst out chuckling. “No, I think we’ll travel back on our own feet. Really what kind of grandmother do you think I am, letting a young man carry my precious granddaughter in his arms for hours.”

Both Lindle and Thalia blushed and before he could protest about saying anything carrying her in his arms Madam Holly laughed again. “You’ll be occupied carrying your prize anyways.” She pointed back at the icebox holding the zmey corpse. He had almost forgotten about it. Even at a normal pace if he had to carry something definitely several times Madam Holly’s weight down the mountain… Lindle groaned and fell back into the snow. Thalia reached over and pat his shoulder sympathetically.

The rest of the night was spent with them finishing their dinner and Madam Holly taking Thalia aside to talk among themselves, Lindle taking the opportunity to squeeze in some more training with [Flow]. By the time Madam Holly had declared it was time to rest he had felt like he might be able to partially activate its effects, but it had yet to appear in his status, meaning the system didn’t think he had truly learned it yet.

As the most well-rested Madam Holly had taken the first watch, telling Lindle he would have the last watch, which his exhausted body was thankful for. Thinking back to the dungeon, Lindle realized the adventurers hadn’t set watches, perhaps Dorothea or Chip had spells set to act as an alarm, or perhaps Chip’s magic kept them protected somehow, Lindle recalled from one of the Soarian priests that certain gods such as Hestia or Hermes were able to grant blessings that created safe havens when resting. Lindle’s sore body certainly missed Chip's magic now, Thalia’s healing had filled up his HP but it lacked the soothing and strengthening effect the high-level cleric's spells had.

The night passed without incident, and in the morning Thalia helped Lindle strap the icebox containing the zmey to his back by summoning some vines.

“Forgot to mention it last night, but congratulations on joining the circle.” Lindle gestured to the necklace. The druid circle were the most powerful spellcasters in Glacerhine and tended to only take people with the most talent for druidic magic.

Lindle was a fair hand at puzzling out the mindsets and Mana point shapes required for most spells even without a lot of Mana to work with, but even the basic tier 1 druid spells taught in class had stumped him. Ironically enough this had surprised his mother, who had told him that most giants apparently had an affinity for nature magic when he told her about lessons that day. It had killed some of his enthusiasm for learning it afterward, but being good enough to join the circle and gain the right class for it was still admirable.

Thalia smiled. “Thank you. It was tough but I think it was worth it.” She looked at her summoned vines proudly. “Something about it just feels right.”

Lindle nodded. “I get what you mean, I’ve been preparing to take my first level for the past few months, I can’t wait for it to happen.”

“The other girls always did talk about how much you were into making things.”

Lindle raised an eyebrow. “They did? Why?”

Thalia looked away and shrugged. “You came up in conversation often enough, I don’t really remember the reason.”

That seemed like concerning information, Lindle wasn’t sure he wanted to know now. He changed the subject back to her new status. “What is it like being in the circle? I’ve never really talked with any of the druids before.”

“It’s really interesting! I’m still an apprentice so it’s mostly instruction and seeing where I want to specialize with my journeyman class before I can take on any official duties. I’ve been helping raise the latest wolf litter!” She smiled fondly. “Do you have any plans for when you get your class?”

“That’s sounds great. For me… well I’m still going to train with my mom for a while… but I was thinking I might leave and push my path. Be a wayfarer.”

Thalia frowned. “Really? You’re leaving Glacerhine?”

Lindle nodded. “Yeah, I made some friends with some adventurers, when the whole dungeon raid thing is over they said they were willing to help me out.”

“Huh… I guessed I just assumed you’d probably take over your mom's shop. If that’s what you want to do I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Before either of them could continue talking they heard Madam Holly shout to them from near the cliff. “Hurry it up! I’m not getting any younger!”

Sighing, the two of them joined her and started down the cliff. Lindle had been right in that the extra weight of the ice and corpse on his back was worse than carrying a small elderly woman, but at least he was doing the worst part of the journey at the beginning and they were going down instead of up.

He kept his Aura use to a minimum, only using [Trek] as he scrambled down. Madam Holly obviously did the entire journey effortlessly, mostly concerning herself with scaring off any monsters. The zmey he had fought was a weak tier 1 monster compared to most of the inhabitants of the mountains, he wondered how she had picked out the location of its nest ahead of time.

What had really captured his attention was how Thalia traveled down the mountain. Even compared to Lindle with no levels she probably didn’t have much more strength and Aura to use for psychical activities as a Druid, so instead of relying on her body, she used one of her Druid Skills, wildshape.

At apprentice tier, she couldn’t turn into truly powerful beasts, but Lindle was still surprised at seeing her transform into a snow leopard, it being the first time he had seen a druid transform up close. Full body transformations were usually the work of high-tier spells, wildshaping being the most famous exception he knew of.

Druids seemed pretty unfair now that he thought about it, being able to completely ignore their weak physical stats by turning into beasts while still retaining the power of a fully dedicated spellcaster. Of course, Thalia couldn’t do both at the same time, but he knew after she leveled up in the future her power would likely be fearsome.

He watched her leopard form climb down the mountain with feline grace as Lindle struggled with a massive weight, feeling fairly jealous. At least druids couldn’t also intrude on his domain as a crafter… He had heard rumors of some being able to do alchemy by growing their own magic herbs… okay so his domain with Artificing was safe, that was something at least.

A few hours later they were down the mountain. They moved at a much more manageable but still grueling pace back to Glacerhine. He had hoped Madam Holly would show consideration with her granddaughter here, but she had been as much of a slave driver to her as she had to him.

Eventually, Lindle and Thalia were both panting on their hands and knees inside the gate, safely back in Glacerhine. Thalia had run out of charges for her wildshape skill an hour ago and had needed to use her limited Aura reserves to keep up for the rest of the trip.

Madam Holly grabbed the icebox off of Lindle’s back and heaved it over her shoulder. “Come on, we still have a ceremony to attend!”

They groaned in response as the elderly evil chuckled. They stumbled to their feet and after her to Mr. Dalton’s Inn.