Dazien remained silent in the small kitchen area as he idly made spiced tea for his partner, who was currently sitting near the small hearth of the single-room apartment they shared. The only furnishings they had managed to get included the armchair and loveseat near the firepce, with a small table between the two seats and the single two-person bed pushed in the far corner against the tinted one-way gss.
They had spent about an hour dealing with the form the AOA requested from them about the events of that morning, such as people involved or if any civilians were injured. That also included picking up payment for the standing “Call to Arms” mission that the city had in pce to incentivize and thank Adventurers who responded to emergency internal breaches.
Once that was done, both of them grabbed a meal at the cafe they had originally left in their haste, thanking the host for understanding their sudden departure and paying for their previous items. They managed to do some training after lunch, but both of them found themselves tired and distracted as they went through their forms and meditation.
It was nearing sundown when the pair made their way back home as they both wanted to recover more from the mental exhaustion of the near-death experience with both the wights and wrathful lord.
The sun was starting to set as Dazien literally waited for water to boil, and he turned to lean against the counter to watch his companion. He finally broke the silence by cautiously asking, “So… what are we going to do about Lord Waynd?”
Uriel sent him a dubious gnce and said, “You’re the one interested in getting his Protégé to join our team.”
“Don’t give me that. You seemed to be enjoying her company as well this morning, and we knew that her Mentor would be a hurdle in our attempts, but he seemed particurly… aggressive towards you,” the warrior pointed out, “I know you mentioned having a history with him, but you had described Padin Waynd as being on your side of things,” he hesitated, unsure if he should poke old wounds, “That didn’t seem to be the case today.”
Uriel shrugged indifferently and seemed to shrink in on himself, “It’s been eight years. Maybe he changed his mind.”
“Perhaps if we could just talk to him in a less combative setting. Expin things to him–”
“He’s the Bde of Pure Wrath, Daze,” Uriel interjected, “Not the Saint of Patient Listening.”
He rolled his eyes and began to walk over to his companion when the kettle whistled, interrupting his response as he turned back to it and finished pouring it into their individual mugs. Once he handed his partner the rexing brew, he sat on the loveseat near the chair and asked carefully, “Perhaps we stick to our original pn then and have Phoenix talk to him on our behalf? We can just… stay clear of crossing paths?”
Uriel took a drink and shook his head, “It’s not going to work, Daze. You saw how he was with her; how he was ready to kill me for her.”
They both shuddered at the thought, and the Defender tried to reassure his best friend, “I don’t think he would have gone that far. He was probably just–”
His words were cut off by a loud knock at the door, and they almost spilled the tea in their hands at the unexpected visitor. They weren’t exactly in the best part of the city, so Dazien carefully and silently set his mug down before slowly making his way to the door and was about to press the rune on the door that would turn it into a one-way window when a rough voice said, “Open up, kid. We need to talk.”
They both froze at that voice. Perhaps the lord of wrath would go that far and had come to finish them off.
“Either you open it, Smithson, or I do,” said Lord Waynd from the other side of the entrance, and Dazien hurried to comply before he was left having to pay for a new door.
The noble didn’t ask as he walked past him and into the single room where Uriel still sat frozen in his seat in a mixture of fear and resignation that Dazien had never seen before, as if the Mage was ready for the death approaching him. Dazien couldn’t allow that.
Waynd seemed to surprise Uriel by sitting on the far side of the loveseat instead of just smiting him where he sat. Dazien was simply grateful that he didn’t have to follow his partner in death from a reaction of vengeance.
He looked between the two men, but as neither seemed to want to speak first, he prompted the conversation with, “Lord Waynd, I would like to apologize once more for not protecting your Protégé proper–”
“She’s not yours to protect,” the Emerald Caster bluntly interrupted.
“Right,” he sourly replied, cringing internally over his slight.
He moved towards Uriel and leaned against the arm of the chair in order to offer a physical buffer between his partner and the intimidating lord in their home, “I would like to change that, however,” he pressed, ignoring Uriel’s attention snapping up to bore into him, “We are young, like Phoenix, but we have worked hard to get where we are, also much like she has, I imagine.”
“I already know how hard you’ve worked, Smithson,” the former padin interrupted again. That was when Dazien registered that Waynd had called him by his family name, which he had never given to the man.
He remained silent as the Emerald Caster, who shouldn’t have known anything about him at all, began detailing his life as though listing off mission highlights, “Orphaned at the age of four to be raised at the Temple of the Parent. Met this one,” he gestured towards Uriel and continued, “At the age of thirteen when he joined the temple as well.
“Began training with Warrior’s oversight at the age of fifteen. Remained unadopted until aging out of the program at sixteen and gained the Warrior King Css at the age of seventeen from inherited Aspects left by your parents. Became an Adventurer at the age of nineteen and officially completed your first mission today,” he finished, never breaking his golden gaze from the gemite’s own amethyst. Then Waynd asked him in a rare moment of speechlessness, “Did I miss anything?”
Dazien shook himself out of his stupor as he cleared his throat and gave a weak smirk, “You forgot that time I convinced another Adventurer to take us out on the tundra to hunt monsters to better prepare for the trials.”
The lord merely raised a brow at his attempt to lighten the mood. Dazien cleared his throat once more before nodding at the ground and correcting his response, “Yes, Lord Waynd, that’s my life summed up.”
Then he swallowed his fear and looked up again to ask, “Are you going to tell us what everyone else does? Are you going to say that we’re either underqualified or too much of a risk and order us to stay away from Phoenix?”
Instead of answering the question, the veteran Adventurer asked one of his own, “What do you pn to do with your party?”
Dazien felt like his heart missed a beat before the words registered. If Waynd was asking that kind of question, then that implied he was actually considering allowing it.
He fought to keep the grin off his face as he answered, “I pn to lead it. That’s what my powerset is all about, really. I’m officially a Forward Defender with a leadership support specialization, but I’m sure you already knew that,” he pointed out before continuing, “I already have Uriel as a Backline Mage with an area Bane specialization, which you also knew, and I believe Phoenix would be a great addition as a versatile Supporter that can fill any role we might need more of in any given situation.
“I’m still looking for a suitable Healer and Striker, but it’s been,” he paused and gnced at Uriel, who was still staring intently at him as though he had lost his mind for speaking to the Wrath Bde like he was.
“Difficult,” Dazien settled on saying before continuing with a soft smile towards Waynd, “Not many people are willing to give him or me a chance like you did for Uriel all those years ago.”
The lord gazed towards Uriel then, who seemed to wilt even more. Dazien continued to try to draw attention away from his introverted partner, “You were one of the people who supported the Chains of Silence to give him a chance at a normal life. I’m asking that you give him the chance to be an Adventurer like yourself now. A chance to save others, like you did for him.”
Silence fell in the room as the pair of Crystal Casters endured the judgmental gaze of the Bde of Pure Wrath.
When the lord finally responded, he merely asked, “You like to talk a lot, don’t you?”
Dazien found himself grinning back, despite the subtle slight, as he responded, “Nobody can argue that I didn’t try to communicate my thoughts properly,” then gestured a thumb towards Uriel as he added lightly, “Plus, I need to talk enough for the both of us.”
The older man gave an annoyed huff and muttered, “I bet Pati would love to have you on board with that silver tongue. Is that how you convinced the AOA and government to allow that amendment for Karislian to remove his Silencers?”
“It took us almost two years to get them to finally agree on the terms of that special dispensation,” the gemite said dryly, then asked hopefully, “Does that mean you’ll give us a chance too?”
Waynd sighed and stood as he said, “I’ll leave the decision to Phoenix.”
Dazien almost jumped for joy at the procmation, but his celebration was postponed by the Emerald aura that suddenly held both of their Crystal ones in a vice grip as the Wrath Bde decred coldly, “If you hurt her, though, and I don’t mean by not defending her in combat like today, I mean if either of you y a finger on her in aggression, you will no longer find yourselves among the living and, be assured, it will look like an accident.”
Then Waynd was gone in a rush of wind, letting Dazien and Uriel be able to breathe again as the door slowly shut automatically with the passing of the vengeful padin.
Phoenix awoke to the familiar sight of her [Guide Book] floating above her with a new message.
Quest: Call to Arms: Temple Threat
Objective Complete: Helped defeat the Wailing Wights.
Objective Reward:
[Bolts of Shadeweave] have been added to your collection.
Completion Reward:
10 [Crystal Mana Bits] have been added to your collection.
“It shouldn’t count if I didn’t defeat them,” Phoenix croaked pitifully at the book, angry at herself for once again falling in battle.
“You helped defeat every one of them,” Paul’s voice said firmly from beside her, and she turned to look at him. He was sitting with his legs crossed in a plush chair, wearing his casual clothes, and seemed to have paused writing in a leatherbound book to watch her intently, “From the reports I got, there would have been casualties if you hadn’t been there.”
“Would have been? Does that mean there weren’t any?” she asked, slowly pushing herself into a seated position, recognizing that she had been moved to her own bedroom at some point.
“Correct,” Paul answered, closing his book and slipping it into the pouch at his side, “You performed admirably, but you shouldn’t have been there in the first pce.”
He partially stood, just enough to sit next to her on the edge of the bed, and gestured to her glowing book, softly asking, “Will you tell me your side of the story?” then his expression hardened slightly, “Starting with those two I found over your savaged body?”
She winced but nodded and moved the book in front of him, going over the events of her day. When she finished her story up to the point she bcked out, she asked, “Do you know what happened after that?”
“I do,” he answered but didn’t eborate. She pouted at his silence, and he gave a sigh, “I was informed of the breach shortly after it had spawned. I arrived soon after you fell, I believe. That’s when I met your two… companions,” he said the st word with a grumble.
“They didn’t force me to do anything I wouldn’t have done on my own, Paul,” she said quietly, “And knowing that my powers helped save lives, I wouldn’t have changed getting involved. This is why I decided to walk this path; it’s what you’ve been training me for.”
“I know,” he conceded, “I just don’t like how close things got.”
“You and I both know you won’t always be there to look after me. That’s why you’re training me, right? So that you won’t have to babysit all the time,” she said, then paused before adding hesitantly, “It sounds like you didn’t like Dazien and Uriel…”
He scoffed and stated bluntly, “I was not impressed.”
“Really? Between Dazien’s knightly persona and Uriel’s silent stoicism, I thought combined they basically equate to the Crystal version of you.”
He rolled his eyes at her, and she ughed, “I’m joking. Honestly, though, I thought we worked well together. I wasn’t sure I should try joining a party at all after getting such a random assortment of powers.”
She tugged at a lock of her red hair nervously, “Actually, I didn’t think anybody would want me to join them because of the ck of focus. I was surprised that they were even interested in me.”
Paul gave another of his annoyed huffs as he said, “You’re an Aurabreaker. You could stand there doing nothing and be a benefit that any party would love to drag around.”
He fell silent for a moment as though not wanting to admit his next words, “You’re not just your auras, though, and they saw that. I’ll give that upstart king that much credit, at least.”
She grinned slightly, “Maybe you do approve then.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he stated dryly.
Phoenix chuckled, and they continued to sit together, just contempting in comfortable silence for a moment. Then she could feel his aura searching through hers, like he often did, as he asked, “Do you want to join them?”
She met his gaze and softly asked, “You think I’d lie about my feelings?”
“I think we all lie to ourselves sometimes,” he pointed out with a small shrug, “Maybe unknowingly, but I don’t want you feeling pressured into doing something you’re not comfortable with.”
“Well,” she began, “I think they made good points that our skills complement each other. I also told them that I would heed your advice on the matter. I think they’ve been honest about their intentions, though.”
Then she added as almost an afterthought, “Plus, they make me ugh… I think I want a bit more of that in my life.”
Paul’s expression softened, and he withdrew his aura to a more unobtrusive level, “If you want to be in their party, I won’t stop you.”
She gave a short ugh, “Oh, I know. I told them as much. Like I said, though, your opinion matters to me. If you think they’d be a terrible fit, then I’ll decline.”
He shook his head, “You’ve been asleep for a while,” he confessed, “It’s almost morning, and I spent the night already looking into them.”
“Of course you did,” she interjected and added teasingly, “You know, you’re starting to act more like an overprotective father than a combat mentor.”
Paul gave another huff and continued, “Even if I hadn’t, I got a good look at their auras, if you could even call them that,” he grumbled, “I knew the talkative one spoke truthfully. They seem to value you as a teammate, not a pawn or tool to improve their status.”
“So they pass the dad inspection?” she asked with a sly grin.
He rolled his eyes at her but nodded, then held up a finger, “On one condition,” he waited for her full attention, then stated firmly, “They join you in our training sessions.”
She ughed and nodded, “Great. I’ll let them know, and we can try out a session in the morning. If you’re avaible?”
He nodded and stood, saying simply, “I’ll be sure to make time for it. Get some more rest until then.”
She was pleasantly surprised by the head pat he gave her as he said farewell before he retreated for the rest of the night. As she heard Paul close the front door, she pulled out the reward from the quest, having forgotten to show it to him during their brief conversation.
It was an odd-looking thing, and she agreed that “trinket” was the only word she could come up with for it.
Item: Fme of Life
A trinket designed to inform others that the attuned Caster is still living.
Caste: Crystal, Cultivating.
Avaibility: Rare.
Type: Trinket, tracking.
Requirements: Crystal Caste.
Effects:
Bonding to the item allows it to track the life status of the bonded.As the Bonded Caster cultivates their Caste, the trinket increases with it, allowing continuity of tracking.
The object looked like a gss orb about the size of a small plum. It had what seemed like an attached metal stand on one side and a matching pointed decorative piece on the opposite side. Inside the orb, she could make out a faintly glowing yellow fme burning within it that was obviously magical.
She set it on the nightstand beside her bed and contempted giving it to Paul. On the one hand, it might give away her secret if something happened to her on a mission. On the other hand, it might help reassure him that she was still alive whenever they were apart, but she wasn’t sure that he worried that much about her. He did encourage her into monster fighting, after all.
The Wayfarer returned the trinket to her collection and put the item out of her mind until she came up with a better solution. Perhaps some actual restful sleep would help clear her mind on it.
