Fighter – A versatile class: fighters are often at the front of a conflict, dealing heavy damage.

  There’s not much to learn there. Fighters fight, I guess. The first thing the class description mentions is that fighters are versatile. Or is it that the class itself is versatile. There are an unfathomable number of martial paths, anyone who is interested in bettering their combat skills would probably be offered the fighter class. So far, I have been restricted to fighting with my only weapon. The merchants dagger that Godfrey crafted for me.

  But, moving forward, I could use anything. I could specialize in daggers, learn to use a bow, pick up a sword, a shield, a pike, a bludgeon. The options are limitless. Dad’s friend, Stella Springstone, is supposed to help me figure out which weapon would be a good fit for me. The plan was for her to test me, guide me towards the best weapon for me, then I would earn my class.

  I would have killed my first beast with the weapon we chose. Helping to guide my class and skills towards one that is suited to the weapon that feels most natural in my hands. That isn’t an option anymore.

  The skills I received were determined by my first fight. The one where I lost my fingers. I rub my pinky stub, remembering the crunching bite that severed them. That injury might be the reason I received my uncommon skill, Scales. Looking at my other skills through this lense, I can see why I received them.

  Dash (Common) – A quick, incorporeal movement along a single plane.

  Pierce (Common) – An enhanced, deeply penetrative strike.

  Scales (Uncommon) – Skin becomes tougher and acts as a thin, flexible layer of armor.

  If I’d had Dash, I might not have been bowled over after missing my first strike. And I killed the slobbering Imp by stabbing into its brain with my dagger, so Pierce makes sense too. In fact, if I’d had that skill, my first strike might have ended the fight entirely.

  These are my skills. They are the backbone of my class, of my ability as a Fighter. Learning to use each skill synergistically is something that most adventurers spend years learning to do. My sparring lessons with Cynthia were focused on ‘simple single combat.’ Neither of us had skills to enhance ourselves or our attacks with.

  Learning to fight and learning to fight with your skills are two different things. Though I had spent years dreaming of adventure and heroic fights between good and evil, I’d never had any real combat training until that day in the courtyard with Cynthia and Instructor Daddy. I’d learned a few simple dagger forms and how to take a blow and keep fighting.

  I can remember the anger I felt when that day was done. Hobbling dirty down the main street, fantasizing about doing violence to any and everybody. All that vitriol because I’d split my lip and tasted more dirt than I’d have preferred. It seems silly now, fuzzy, like it happened a long time ago. It was probably less than a week ago.

  Those lessons had kept me alive. But they won’t be enough on their own anymore. That last fight was too close. I can’t keep coming back from the edge of death, eventually I won’t be able to block a blow, or crawl to the berry patch. Without those berries, I’d be dead, there’s no doubt in my mind.

  I need to learn to use my skills effectively. I’d nearly died from that first blow from the Elite Imp. I imagine that first exchange in my mind, trying to picture it clearly. I had Dashed for a moment, caught the creature off guard, then activated Scales and Pierce simultaneously. Scales had activated, I can remember the feeling of my skin tightening as it took hold. But Pierce didn’t activate. My stab had bounced off a rib and been deflected. Then I was kicked across the landscape.

  That moment stands clearly in my mind. If I had been able to activate Pierce, I might have won in an instant. On the other hand, if I hadn’t been able to activate Scales, that kick would have caved in my chest. Maybe if I had used Pierce, then Scales, it would have had the same effect. But that would have assumed that I had caught the Imp off guard with my initial Dash. And that’s not an assumption I’m comfortable making.

  I close my eyes, feeling the earth beneath me. My legs cross beneath me and my breath comes to me naturally, slowly and evenly. I draw my attention up, from the earth through my legs, hips, waist, chest, shoulders, arms, all the way to the top of my head. Until my mind is filled with all of it, focused on my body, and how it fits together.

  I hold it there, my attention, breathing deeply and feeling the ways my body flexes and relaxes during each inhale and exhalation. I pull my mind back slowly, centering it around my cores, letting my body fall away. Until my focus rests entirely on the two separate glowing orbs behind my sternum.

  They hum with a glowing energy, similar to each other, but with a few clear differences. My Profession core holds more energy, a steady blue pool, rotating slowly within the spherical confines. My Class core has less energy within, it rotates faster though, a red whirlpool with the occasional flash of black where the energy collides.

  I’d never had trouble using two skills at once with my Profession core, it took a little more energy than using them both individually though. And I’d never found myself in a situation where it felt necessary to waste energy that way.

  I focus on the core with the crimson energy, it’s full, though the energy isn’t as dense as it is in my other core. With a few more levels, its density will rival the other. I can feel where my skills are imprinted, like complex, moving characters are stamped on the cores shell. There are three of them, each one representing either Dash, Pierce, or Scales.

  Though I can’t read the characters, their identities are clear to me. As though they were the faces of my best friends, how could I ever mix them up? A stranger might think they all look alike, maybe they could tell which one is uncommon. The Scales skill character is more complex, it moves more smoothly than the others.

  I pull some of the energy from the whirlpool and direct it to the character, filling the grooves until the entire symbol is saturated. A small part of my mind can feel my skin tighten, but my attention is here. The glowing symbol begins to dim, and I feed it more of the crimson energy to keep it glowing.

  Focusing on keeping a steady stream on the Scales skill, I begin to siphon off more energy in a separate stream, this one directed to the Dash skill. Though the character representing this skill is simpler, its grooves are deeper, like valleys. It takes more to activate the skill, and I am only able to activate it for a few seconds before I’m forced to stop. The drain is too great.

  It makes sense, dash is something you wouldn’t keep active for minutes at a time, it is meant for small bursts. My core is still two-thirds full, and I am maintaining my scales. I siphon energy into the Pierce skill, the grooves are deep, like Dash. Once the character reaches saturation, it glows brightly, burning all the energy at once, in a moment.

  A sudden rush of energy fills my seated body, pulling my attention away from the core. I shake off the urge to move and settle back into my seat. Letting my mind drift back to my core. When I’d used my Skills in the past it was easy, and simple. I don’t need to watch my core so carefully to use them, my goal now is just to deepen my understanding.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I focus on the Scales character, watching it move. It is still active and draining the whirlpool at a steady pace. My core is lower than half-full now, I don’t have much more to donate to experimentation. As the character dances, I try to direct more energy towards it. I know that if I don’t send enough, it will flicker out and the Skill will deactivate.

  The glowing character grows brighter with the influx of energy. My core empties faster and the protective layer around me grows thicker. I pour more and more energy into the skill until it shines brightly. I can feel it when I reach the edge, if I add more the symbol will fall apart, the energy will burst the character and the Skill will stop.

  I watch my core as it empties. I hope the keeper is watching, I hope he understands that I’m trying to grow stronger, that this isn’t time wasted. I hope he doesn’t send more enemies while my core is dry. Because that is the next test.

  I’ve run low on energy in each fight. So low that I couldn’t activate a single Skill, but I’ve never run out entirely. I’ve never tried to draw on an empty core. I watch the last of the glowing energy enter the character and will it to glow for as long as it can.

  It dims quickly, at a steady rate. My core is empty, but the symbol had been supercharged, as it burns the pools of energy in the character’s grooves, it dims more and more. Until it is a faint tracing in my mind’s eye, then it gutters, before darkening entirely.

  I feel a hollow chime vibrate through my chest, rippling out to my body in a series of waves. My body hunches in on itself, each wave is a deep pang of pain. It pulls my attention from my cores and I stop trying to draw from the empty well.

  My breathing is labored. The world around me is dull; the stark landscape looks even starker through my core-depleted vision. My stomach heaves, but there is nothing in it to eject. Seconds stretch into minutes, the symptoms are slow to subside.

  I try to return to my core, to see it up close. But I can’t, my body is rioting. It takes ten minutes, at least. Ten minutes until I can catch my breath, until my muscles release and my stomach calms. When I return to my Class core, I see a string of red energy, a loop, swirling in the barren space.

  I watch it as it begins to fill, with less movement and confusion in the core I can find the source of the energy. It trickles in from the shell, from the skill characters themselves. The grooves that define the characters are thinner than the rest of the cores exterior. It seeps in slowly and the energy gathers on peaks and trickles into the whirlpool in threads, like I’m spinning up a spool of thread.

  It happens slowly, and I watch it all. The whirlpool isn’t moving as fast as it was when the core was full to the brim. It moves more slowly now, the red threads leaving trails as they gather onto the spool of energy. It’s moving slower than my Profession core.

  The energy is gathering, but it’s happening so slowly. I want to speed it up. I know there’s a way to do it, I’ve seen Dad do it. On busy days in the shop, he would take his lunch alone in the backroom, away from the sounds and smells of the store. He would tell me to mind the desk, he needed to go ‘recharge his social battery.’ Then he would disappear behind the wooden doors and in a half-hour he would come back with some extra pep in his step.

  If I continue to think of the core like a spool of thread, then rotating the spool faster should gather more thread. I give that a shot, nudging it slightly. I think it’s working. I try to nudge it faster and feel some resistance, it’s not that the spool’s resisting. It’s my concentration. It takes a lot of focus; I have to sink into the spool and will it to rotate. Faster. Faster.

  It’s working, I can feel it, but I can’t measure it in any way without losing grip on the spool. At this point, it’s moving about as fast as it was when the core was full of energy. I can’t nudge it any faster, it takes all my focus to keep it moving as fast as it is now.

  After an immeasurable period of time, I let it slow. But it doesn’t return to the original plodding pace it found after I drained the sphere dry. No. It’s moving faster than that. When I step back and look at the core entirely, I see why. It’s much fuller than before. More than halfway.

  I lean back against the wall and let out a deep sigh. My mind feels numb, exhausted. My body is tired from its reaction to the dry core. And my mind wanders aimlessly. The burnt meat in front of me is only slightly repulsive. It had probably burnt nearly an hour ago, luckily the flame was going out.

  It hadn’t been burned to ashes entirely. I scrape away the worst of it and my stomach accepts the rest greedily. I stoke the fire up, and add a few branches to the flames. I cut some more meat and lay it to rest on the coals in anticipation. I have enough energy now to really understand just how hungry I am.

  I don’t really want more meat. I want bread, noodles, dumplings, potatoes. Oddly enough, I’m craving a salad. I want real fruit. But the meat is quite good, and it’s the only thing I have right now. I let it cook until it’s dark and then chew the tough meat with great relish.

  I stand, ripping another strip of meat off the greater hunk. I walk over to the killing ground, it’s too busy over here. I pull the corpses to the side, piling them up to create a small wall on the other side of the tree. Don’t want that smell anywhere near my camp.

  My comfort around the dead Imps has grown, it really doesn’t bother me to drag their stiff bodies into position. Then I return to my preferred battleground and spend some time clearing the earth, flattening the area in a rough circle.

  It’s time to knit some ideas together. I’ve learned to fight, albeit messily. And I understand my core better now. It’s time to practice fighting with my skills.

  “Hey!” I announce, raising my voice to ensure he hears me. “I’m going to do some training, just give me a bit of time, okay? This is a Crucible, right? You’re trying to make me stronger? This is part of it, I promise. Please. No surprises?”

  There is no answer, part of me feels foolish trying. But I need to do this, if the difficulty trend continues, then I won’t be able to win as I am. If the next batch of Imps were sent now, I’d die to them. I have to get stronger at the same rate, and two levels isn’t enough. More power isn’t enough. I need to learn how to use it.

  I draw my dagger and sink into my core, it’s nearly full now. I lower myself into a combat stance and Dash forward in a blink, activating both Scales and Pierce as I strike upwards at an imagined foe. I devote more energy this time, and feel my skin tighten as my dagger shoots forward in an empowered stab.

  She keeps the skin barrier activated as she dashes, backwards this time, pivoting and lunging to the left. Her movements are brusque, harsh and simple, they lack the grace of an experienced fighter. But she displays an economy of movement that is refreshing.

  So many challengers carry themselves with a unique brand of useless grace. Movements that are extraneous, intended to appear fluid and effortless. The motions would be beautiful in a dance. But they don’t fit the purpose, which, of course, is dealing death.

  No, she has none of that grace. A good thing, for sure. But she also lacks the grace that a career soldier might carry, the fluidity that experience imparts. The flick of a wrist that can turn a narrow slashing injury into a gaping wound. A small look that sells a feint, opening an avenue for a crippling blow to land.

  She’ll need to survive a long time to learn these things, even longer for them to become an unconscious part of her technique. But she has potential; a simple and solid foundation. She had a few bad habits when she entered, those have been trained out of her by claws and teeth – good teachers, those. A few detrimental habits still linger, but there are plenty more lessons ahead of her.

  She moves through a few attacks; her weapon is limiting her. Her left hand has no job, it helps her balance, she can use it to grapple if she needs to. But she’s hesitant to use it against the imps. Probably due to that first fight. Her left hand doesn’t work like it used to, and she doesn’t need to use it.

  Her skill-use is becoming more subtle. Not less powerful, they are just woven into her combat a little more cleanly. She is using smaller bursts with the same degree of effect. And this is where she has impressed me throughout this floor, she learns quickly. That, paired with an unexpected ability to stay calm and fight through injury has gotten her this far.

  She stops and sits again, cross legged. Harvesting energy from the air to fill her core. She’s learning quickly, it would be nice if she survived. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a champion on the outside.

  It is too early for hope, she’s not halfway through the first floor yet. But she’s close. Soon, she’ll earn her first reward chest. I have a few ideas. She stands and looks around her, searching. Her dagger is still in her hand, after a moment, she looks satisfied.

  “Okay, send them!” She shouts, bouncing side-to-side on her toes.

  Is that anticipation I can taste in the air? Oh, yes, we’ll make a monster of you yet, Noelle. With a thought, I release the next wave. Two of the Elites roar, moving slowly towards the Cinderfruit. Noelle looks at them both, I can almost see the thoughts crossing her mind. What will you do now, little one?