Ember of Invention

Lindle glanced back at his friends in confusion. He hadn’t heard anything about adventuring parties having names.

Thalia had the same look of confusion on her face, but Humphrey seemed less surprised.

“Would you give us a second?” Lindle excused himself before stepping back with his friends. “I didn’t know anything about needing a name, did you guys?”

Thalia shook her head, but Humphrey raised an eyebrow. “Well, I didn’t know a name was needed, but parties I’ve worked for have names for themselves. I just thought it was just a weird Soarian thing. I figured you knew, you hang out with those adventurers often enough.”

Well, no he didn’t, Dorothea and her party hadn’t ever mentioned a group name for themselves. “Nope. I don’t even know what an adventuring party's name should sound like.”

“It’s usually something like the Silver Swords or Companions of the Bridge. It’s usually either something really obvious about themselves or what the name refers to is completely indecipherable, usually some kind of inside joke I guess.”

“That sounds like it could be fun,” Thalia said, looking kind of intrigued, “I don’t really know where to start though. Maybe something like… the Glade’s Blades!”

“None of us use swords though.” Lindle pointed out.

“Hm, true. Um… maybe something like the Frost Scaled Hunters?”

Lindle frowned, keeping his voice low. “I mean, it’s an inside joke I guess, but I don’t know how I feel about a name hinting at something we’re trying to keep secret.”

Thalia winced. “Ah, sorry, then yeah I guess it doesn’t work either.”

“It’s fine, I’ve got no idea what we could use either. The main thing we have in common that comes to mind is that we all live here, but it feels weird to pick a name based on that.” Lindle shrugged. He couldn’t think of any obvious theming between the three of them, and they hadn’t done anything exciting enough to give him any good ideas.

They both looked at Humphrey, who seemed uninterested in brainstorming a name for themselves and just shrugged silently.

Lindle sighed. He turned back to the guild worker. “Do we need a name now?”

The worker laughed awkwardly. “Uh, I guess not, if you just want to be registered as individual adventurers. To register a party though you’ll need one. If you don’t have anything in mind yet I can keep the form handy for you?”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Lindle said. If they could afford to take some time to come up with something then it was fine not to officially have a party yet. Theodore wasn’t a regular member of the party he was grouped up with and apparently it was fine for him to take a quest with them.

“It’s no problem, I’ll go put these away, we can do those demonstrations now.” The worker held up the forms before filing them away and stepping away from around the counter. “If you could follow me please.”

The three of them followed the guild worker away from the main room out the back, where a small courtyard had been sectioned off by a wooden fence. It reminded Lindle a bit of the training grounds, but a lot more cramped. Near the back, a small raised podium with black crystals embedded on its surface stood. The guild worker fished around in his pockets until he pulled out another smaller black crystal. Lindle activated his Ethos sense out of curiosity and was a bit taken aback by the power coming off the Ethos wrapped around the enchanted object. It wasn’t just the enchantment, but the material itself seemed to hold decently strong Ethos. It wasn’t anything blinding, but it was certainly notable.

“Who would like to go first? We can use the Shadow Lantern for your demonstrations.” The guild worker asked. He grinned widely and gestured to the podium and the crystals shimmered, a ray of blackness shooting to the front of it to form a vaguely humanoid shadow. “This shadow illusion can act as a target, and it can give me feedback about the amount of power or energy of something that passes through or targets it.”

Lindle was surprised at the display of what sounded like pretty complicated magic just for a basic demonstration, the guild worker caught his expression and rubbed the back of his head nervously. “We don’t get to use it much here, but they’re standard issue at guild outposts.”

Thalia seemed impressed, looking at the shadow with clear interest, while Humphrey crossed his arms with a slight frown. Lindle elbowed him, whispering to his friend. “You don’t need to act like being here is going to kill you or anything, don’t be rude.”

Humphrey scowled for a second, but he uncrossed his arms. “Fine.” He called out to the guild worker. “I’ll go first.” Humphrey drew his bow and walked out across the courtyard. “How does this work?”

“Just target and hit the shadow illusion with something you’d use to fight a monster on a quest. Make sure to call out the name of the ability you’re using, like you would in a dungeon.” The worker answered.

Humphrey nodded, nocking an arrow and pulling back, taking aim at the illusion. “[Spinning Shot].” The arrow glowed subtly before Humphrey let it fly. As it traveled through the air, it began to spin rapidly, and it passed through the illusion, landing in the fence and digging into the wood for a moment before stopping.

The crystal in the worker’s hand shimmered, and he nodded. “Impressive for apprentice tier, good job.”

“Is that all?” Humphrey asked.

“You said you could scout?”

Humphrey nodded, and the worker looked down at his crystal, and the shadow illusion disappeared. “If you could, please point out where I hid the illusion in the courtyard.”

Lindle tilted his head and Humphrey began to scan their surroundings. A test for perceptiveness made sense if Humphrey’s role in a party was partially being able to pick out traps as a scout. He wondered if being able to pass certain tests meant anything significant when it came to the guild’s information about them. Perhaps knowledge about their ability to fill a role in a party was useful to them somehow, even if Humphrey failed this test, his ability as an archer should be enough as a damage dealer for killing monsters.

After a couple of seconds of looking around, Humphrey pointed to a spot behind Lindle. “It’s there, it’s hiding in Lindle’s shadow.”

Lindle blinkled, and stepped to the side, looking behind himself. Sure enough, crouched behind him, the illusion had been lurking in his shadow.

The guild worker smiled. “You spotted it quickly, perceptive. You definitely qualify for scout work. That should be all I need from you.”

Humphrey nodded and rejoined his friends. Lindle held out a fist for him, which the ranger bumped. “Nice one man, that kind of freaked me out, I had no idea it was there, and you found it super fast.”

“It’s nothing,” Humphrey deflected. “After that stunt you pulled yesterday in the tree, I’ve had the idea of being more aware of places where things could be hiding stuck in my head. Can’t just rely on my Skills for everything you know.”

“I’ll go next!” Thalia volunteered enthusiastically, walking forward and pulling out Lotus Thorn. The artifact visually wasn’t that different from a regular wand, and its effect wasn’t obvious, so using it here wasn’t a big deal, nonetheless, Lindle did feel a bit nervous at seeing it out in front of someone.

“Spellcasting, just show me some spells you’d use, call them out, same as your friend. ” The worker instructed.

Thalia cycled through some spells, focusing on plant-based attack spells and sending them at the illusion. [Thorn whip], [Needle Spray], [Entangling Vines] and such. She also threw out some basic elemental spells of ice, wind, earth, and water. The worker seemed impressed by the power of her spells, the important thing seemed to be the variety she had access to, not only asking her to perform attack spells but some utility spells as well. He also asked her to cast a healing spell on the illusion, she had been confused but complied. She had been even more confused and surprised when the illusion seemed to react, a subtle green glow appearing and the crystal in the worker’s hand shimmering.

The testing was quite a bit longer for her than for Humphrey, but eventually the worker seemed satisfied. “Good job, you seem to have a good set of spells for adventuring. Now, as a druid, you said you could transform?”

“Yeah, it’s a druid Skill with a number of charges per day that lets me turn into beasts,” Thalia answered.

“Could you show me?” The worker asked.

Thalia smirked, before wildshaping into her dire wolf form. The worker let out a short shout of surprise, taking a step back before collecting himself. “That is… impressive. I’ve heard about that Druid Skill, but I haven’t gotten to see it in person since I was assigned here. I suppose you should… attack the illusion.”

The dire wolf let out a bark before trotting over to the illusion, hesitating as Thalia seemed unsure how to go about attacking it, but settling on simply attempting to bite it. Her jaws passed right through, closing with a snap, but the crystal shimmered. Thalia backed away, shaking her head.

“That should be good, you can transform back.”

Thalia did so, still shaking her head. “Touching that felt weird. It felt like there was resistance, but there wasn’t at the same time? I didn’t like it, almost bit my tongue.”

The worker winced “My apologies for not warning you, that’s normal.”

“It’s fine.” Thalia waved his apology off. “I think that’s all yeah?”

“Yes, now I just need to test you.” The worker gestured to Lindle, who nodded and stepped forward as Thalia walked back, giving him a smile as she passed.

Lindle trained his eyes on the shadow illusion as he closed with it, inspecting the Ethos with his feat. It was just a strange combination of aspects, darkness, shadow, and mana, and others he didn’t recognize, and even aside from that, it connected back to the podium and the handheld crystal in a way he hadn’t seen before and it was just fascinating. The closest thing he could compare it to was when he saw the way Chip’s personal Ethos reached out and connected outside of itself, but this was still completely different. He wanted to look it over more as closely as he could, see if it could give him any ideas for crafting.

“Right um… a battle alchemist…” The worker hesitated, as he between the crystal in his hand and the shadow illusion. “So, the Shadow Lantern interacts with Mana and Aura, but it doesn’t really do anything with potions, so there’s no point in using it for your demonstration.” He shrugged and the crystals became inert, the illusion disappearing and Lindle could see the enchantment go inactive as it did before, the connections of Ethos fading away.

“It’s not as interesting, but I guess you could just show and explain to me the types of potions you have to use.”

Lindle sighed in disappointment.