“Okay, but really. Tell me again what you mean by how did you like my bird?” I was asking Trelain for the third time.

  “Just that! Did you like the tail addition? How did it stand up to Frost attacks?” He asked, turning to the trio.

  “It uh… I mean it was… Good? I guess?” Benji bumbled.

  “Perfect,” Trelain said, beaming.

  "What do you mean, perfect? It tried to kill us!” I kept after Trelain, not letting him ‘wizened old sage’ avoid this one.

  "Well of course it did, you took a vial of blood! That’s what it’s supposed to do! But now we have so much more! Oh so much more. Think of all the hygiene potion I’ll be able to make!” Trelain said.

  “Wait you can make the hygiene drink with canary blood? That doesn’t seem right…” Dane murmured.

  “Okay but again… your bird?” I ignored Dane and kept pressing.

  “Yes. GZelle. My. Bird,” Trelain said, seriously.

  “Oh,” I said, looking at him quizzically.

  “So then the question is really… why?” Maleena ventured.

  “I knew you were the smart one!” Trelain said happily.

  “Hey….” Benji half heartedly protested.

  “Okay, then. Why do you have a half scorpion, half canary, giant bird hidden in a cave? What could you possibly need with something like that?” I yelled.

  “Why, the blood of course,” Trelain said, looking at me like I was mad.

  “And these hybrid monster killing machines, they just… exist and you house them?” Benji asked.

  “Who did it kill?” Trelain asked, earnestly.

  “Well, no one…” Benji looked sheepish.

  “I think after the why, we should be asking how? Is that right, Apostle?” Maleena cut in, redirecting the conversation.

  “Right again, Ms. Maleena! Here, have a book,” Trelain said, handing her what looked an awful lot like a skill book.

  She looked down at it slightly agape, thrown off guard by the random act of charity from the old man. Maleena shook her head and set the book down on the table and reapproached with her question.

  “Apostle Trelain, how do you just have a monster like that contained? Did you trap it there or…”

  “I’m a Shaper. Well, one of my Domains that is,” Trelain said, smiling.

  “Ohhhhh,” The three said almost in unison.

  “No, not oh. What does that mean?” I asked, and then followed it up with a, “Remember… other worlder here.”

  “His Domain specializes in building things, combining raw resources to create something new, and some of the rarest of Shaper Domain Apostles can actually design living things,” Dane said.

  “They’re not sentient. That would require a soul,” Benji said.

  “But they do obey simple commands, and they can act as guardians, watch dogs, and some people even use them to farm alchemical specific loot,” Dane finished.

  “Right you are, big man. You get a book too!” Trelain gave an amused smile and proffered another skill book out of thin air and handed it to Dane.

  He took it, wide eyed.

  “So you made the bird for the blood. Why can’t you just… harvest the blood without all that… thwacking?” I asked, still thinking about the rain of dead canaries in the cave.

  “Well, I can,” Trelain said as-a-matter-of-factly.

  “Wait what?” Maleena exclaimed.

  Trelain just gave a knowing smile and was slowly nodding at our understanding of the situation.

  “He wanted us to work together. See what it was like to fight as a party. We were never in real danger, not like with the Diak Hresh…” Benji said from his seated position.

  “Very good, young Master Benji. Want a book? Have a book!” Trelain cackled madly and then threw a book at him.

  It was Benji’s turn to look taken aback. He caught it, and just stared at the leather-bound book in his hands. His eyes were sparkling with a mixture of excitement, confusion, and absolute revelry.

  “Okay so we got the blood you wanted, and then some. I’ve still got a few things on the list to make the key of stabilization. Tre, was the whole point of this to get me to realize that I never asked you if you had any of these ingredients in your storerooms? Always ask the quest giver more questions? Something like that?” I asked.

  Trelain threw a book at me. I caught it, looked down, smiled, and then looked up to finish the thought.

  “Tre, do you have an ingot of silver, gold, and thirty ball bearings of 5160 steel?”

  “I do!!!”

  “Can I have them?”

  “You… may.”

  “You don’t happen to have the elmstier wood extract too, do you?” I asked.

  “No, you’ll have to actually go get that, I’m afraid. But once you do, we can talk about that workbench. It’s all part of the process!” Trelain said, beaming. Then he handed me a few pieces of metal from thin air.

  I watched in the mini map as three little white circles (marking quest item location) come and go as I accepted the items from Trelain’s inventory and put them into my own.

  1 ingot of silver 1/1

  1 ingot of gold 1/1

  30 ball bearings of 5160 steel 30/30

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  “Gang?”

  “Don’t call us that,” Dane said immediately.

  “Ooh, yeah sorry. Guys?” Then I looked at Maleena who just shrugged, so I continued. “Remind me of this moment, sometime.”

  “Why?” Benji asked.

  “So, I can come back here and give Trelain a quest of my own…”

  “I won’t be doing that,” Dane said.

  “Oh come on, I didn’t even get to the punchline!” I protested.

  “I know, and that’s where it’ll stay. It wasn’t going to be good.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know you,” Dane insisted.

  “But we just met yesterday!”

  Benji turned to Maleena who was sitting with her nose in her book, reading, and asked, “Soo… what did you get?”

  She just held up the book between them with it still open so she could keep reading.

  'Three Simple Ways to Bulk'

  It looked like another Enhancement Domain spell, but I couldn’t tell what yet. She, or the Party Perks, would let us know soon enough.

  “What about you?” Maleena asked Benji from over her book.

  'Is That a Flashlight or Are You Just Happy to See Me?'

  “Who writes these things?!” I said, laughing.

  “No one,” Tre said, “They’re magic incarnate. Something from nothing… or everything, if you think about it. Everything, and then gone again. My library is from years of drops, quest rewards, public favor, you name it. I’ve kept every single one I’ve acquired over the years since I filled my power suite long ago. These,” he gestured at the books in each of our hands, “… are but a few. Greg, you got some of my more unique books. But that was by design.”

  “Wait, you said gone again? What do you mean? I put the books back on the shelf when I read them. They should be there, right? Or did they disappear after I used them? They didn’t burn up or anything, right?” I asked, suddenly feeling very guilty if I had just burned through some rare one-use items without asking first.

  “As I said, by design.” Trelain said, smiling.

  “So that’s a yes?” I asked.

  Dane looked up from his own book, briefly, “That’s a yes.”

  “Trelain… I’m…I’m so sorry. I’ll pay you back. I had no idea. I just saw books. I like books. Who doesn’t like books? I just—”

  “Don’t worry, my boy. You’ll pay for them, in time. I know this to be true. No need to worry, though.”

  I just looked at him, a little concerned but also plenty embarrassed. I decided to just accept the staggering continued generosity, and looked down at the book he had flung at me a few minutes before.

  'Coping with Compatibility'

  “Okay I know these are pure magic and everything, but why are they all so melodramatic?” I asked.

  Too engrossed in their own books, no one answered my perfectly reasonable question.

  Honestly these books were starting to sound like my HUD messages and I was wondering if the words I was reading on the books were somehow different from what everyone else saw.

  If I could scan a book, decided if I wanted to read and accept the spell, then what was it like for the others?

  They had to read the entirety of the book, that much was understood. But did they know what they were reading before they finished it? Or was there not a clear answer as to what the spell, skill, or passive would be until it interacted with their power suite.

  I resolved to ask at another time, when the three weren’t fully enveloped in their own advancement.

  I looked down at the book. It was in the tell tale style of a Mirror Domain book; the cover was blue-black, glossy and reflective, but not overly shiny. It looked more like a sapphire held just below a trickling stream.

  Would you like to read 'Coping with Compatibility'?

  Mimic [Passive] [Domain: Mirror] Replicate anything physical you witness with equal form. This does not apply to magical effects or spells. Your replication is only as good as what you observed (Mana cost: none)

  Yes/no?

  “Holy… YES.”

  My body was flooded with that same tepid cold feeling, raising goosebumps up and down my arms. My eyes felt heavy and my muscles ached, and then the feeling was gone.

  Now, I just felt… at peace.

  I looked around the room; everyone was still wrapped up in their own things. Trelain had made himself scarce, and was sitting on a newly built covered deck just outside of the living room. I went to sit with him.

  I didn’t speak for a while, feeling extremely lucky and quite calm. Whatever happened in the future, I had the means to learn by surrounding myself with impressive and knowledgeable people.

  That meant, if I ever got home, I could watch top tier field medics operate in battlefield situations and come out of the experience with the skills to save a life.

  I could take Naomi dancing and not worry about the steps, because with a few YouTube videos, I could be just as good as them.

  Even here, I could spend an afternoon with Dane, learning about combat and positioning. I wouldn’t have to muddle through, ever again. Or at least I wouldn’t have to once I found someone competent to show me their skills.

  I took a deep breath, sitting in the Adirondack chair under the covered roof watching light rain hit the forest floor below. There was a gentle breeze, the sun was out, and I was somewhere beautiful. I let myself relax, probably for the first time since I got here.

  Maybe for the first time in a long time.

  When my body felt centered, I turned to the old man who had given me so much and asked for nothing.

  “Hey Tre…”

  “Yes my boy?”

  “Why?”

  Tre put his flagon down, turned to me, and stared me right in the eyes for a long minute. His stare was penetrating but not uncomfortable. I held his gaze.

  Eventually, he smiled and just said, “Because I can.”

  I let a little time pass, letting his words sink in. And then asked, “Tre? You sure it’s okay we keep staying here?”

  “I insist,” he said.

  I noticed a flagon sitting on the arm of the chair I was sitting in and raised an eyebrow in question. He just nodded. We sat there in silence for a while, letting the trio inside read their books.

  I was excited to learn what they got, but equally happy to just sit and relax for once.

  With one more ingredient on the Sub quest list, I was nearly ready to make the key and fix the forest wards. After that, who knew what was going to happen. But I didn’t care, something in my body felt centered and I breathed easy for the rest of the night. Before going to bed, I checked my character screen.

  Gregory Zell

  Human Initiate

  Progression to Acolyte: 4/18 powers

  Disciplines: Mirror, Metallurgy, Fauna

  Power Suite Progression: Four out of eighteen filled.

  Current Power Suite: Mirror Door, Furnace, Spirit Avatar, Mimic

  Passive Perks: Reader, Dimensional Traveler, Mirror Affinity, Mana Burn

  Achievements: Literate, Basic Human Decency, Burning Body, So That’s Your Spirit, Portal Away, Power Isn’t Everything

  Inherent Skills: Triage, Calm Under Pressure, Emergency Intervention, Identify, Polyglot

  Equipped Magic Items: Velveteen Moccasins, Aculeus

  Inventory

  Noctua horn. 1/1

  Flask of fire whisky 1/1

  Canary Blood 112/8

  Ingot of silver: 1/1

  Ingot of gold: 1/1

  Ball bearings of 5160 steel: 30/30

  Mana potion: 5

  Health potion: 5

  Hygiene potion: 12

  Rations: 6

  Small hurricane lamp: 1

  Chunk of wax: 1

  Bolt of green cloth: 1

  Fork: 1

  Gort Varaz pelt: 3

  Guts: 4

  Boar hairs: 18

  Common military pick: 1

  Kris: 1

  Carrying capacity: 19/200