I decided to give a half truth. It would be hard to hide my massive MP bar for very long, so it was better to hedge out troublesome questions early on. “Well, I don’t know much about fighting, but my Skill gives me extra MP.” That seemed as non-specific as I could probably get away with. “And as I said before, the ‘chip Brand’ can do a lot more than make chips.” I reached into my bag and pulled out my laptop. “I also made this with it.”

  “That some kind of shield?” Jay asked. “Could it block pursuer beast claws?”

  I was only trying to make a point about other uses, not get side-tracked talking about the wonders of technology, so I let Jay’s comment slide and stuffed the laptop back into my bag. “This couldn’t, no, but I could probably make something that could. I haven’t really tested the limitations yet, but if I studied a suit of dragon scale enough, I don’t see why I couldn’t craft a convincing replica.”

  “Huh,” Grant said. “Doubt it, but it sounds like your Skill is useless without accompanying Brands. It is lucky you bought some.”

  “Yup,” I agreed. And if anyone found out what I could do without them, I’d probably be arrested. “With the extra MP my Skill gives me, I can do stuff like this.” I held out my hand and summoned another potato. I dropped it in the top of my backpack. It was getting kind of full.

  I’d already lost another point of MP to overcharge drain, since the last potatoes I’d given to Torra. I really needed to find something useful to spend the rest of it on.

  Alloha’s eyes went wide. “Is that… Conjure Potato? Oh, it is, isn’t it? I’ve heard of that Brand. Free potatoes for life! That’s so cool that you got it. If it wasn’t so expensive, I’d save up for it myself.”

  “It wasn’t that expensive,” I told her. “It was actually one of my cheaper Brands. I just got it so I wouldn’t have to carry supplies. My broker told me it was the best Brand on the market for making your own food.”

  “Cheap?” Alloha repeated. Her mouth gawped open and she covered it with her hand. “It costs 720 Crosses! Do you have any idea how much food you can buy for that?”

  I hesitated before answering. “A… lot?”

  Alloha giggled, poking Torra in the side. “It’s like he’s never been in the real world before!” Torra laughed with her.

  “And he says he ain’t rich,” Jay interjected.

  “You could feed a family for a decade for what that Brand costs!” Alloha informed me. “Sorry, kid, but I think you have some learning to do. Do you realize most of us had to save up for years just to afford our initial registration fees for the guild?”

  Torra raised a hand. “Seven years for me,” he said. “I’ve been putting pennies aside since I was sixteen.” He didn’t seem upset about it. Like Alloha, he had a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. It almost seemed like he was proud to have worked so hard to get in.

  “Ah, well… maybe it wasn’t the most efficient use of my money,” I admitted, “but I’m not really concerned about saving anything for the future. I just didn’t want to have to carry around a bunch of supplies. Maybe I can just sell extra potatoes when I have more MP than I need.”

  Alloha raised an eyebrow. “Take a while to pay if off that way,” she said.

  Grant waved a hand. “We get it. You bought Conjure Potato. That isn’t going to help the group. What else did you get?”

  “Oh. Right,” I said. “I also bought Fireball, Static Bolt, and Healing Touch.”

  Torra let out a surprised guffaw. “Daaaang! Now we’re talkin’!”

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  Grant flashed a smile at me. “Ranged support and healing? No wonder you rolled all weal.”

  “He got all weal?” Victoria asked. She set her mug down and actually looked at me for the first time. I wilted under her intense gaze, breaking eye contact first. “Maybe he is dangerous,” she commented to Grant. “But he’s still just a kid.”

  All these “kid” comments were getting under my skin. I couldn’t wait to prove them all wrong. Maybe I’d conjure up a fully automatic machine gun while we were out on our mission and show them what human technology was really capable of.

  “Kid or not doesn’t matter,” Grant said. “The important thing is, he rounded out our team enough to get approved for this mission. Depending how many venom sacks we harvest, this could be our biggest payday yet. We could walk away with a thousand Crosses each.” He nodded at me. “We did all our shopping these last two days, so it would be really nice if you were ready to leave this afternoon.”

  “Yeah. I can do that,” I said. “But wouldn’t it be fair if everyone tells me what they can do too? I mean, if we’re going to be fighting together…”

  “Ha!” Torra barked out. “He’s got you there.”

  Grant sighed. “Yeah. But keep it short, we got a long ways to go today. We’re going to be camping out for at least two nights. Three, if we don’t make it far enough today. I’ll go first. My Skill is called Reverse Gravity. It’s a channeled Skill. It reverses gravity. What more is there to say?”

  “Like falling up?” I asked. “Does that mean you can fly?”

  Grant smirked. “Well, not to brag, but yes. I got my Skill appraised at the Brokers as a category six. Selling it to them is going to be my retirement plan. They said the Porters will probably pay just to keep it off the market.”

  Vitoria tsked. “He can’t fly,” she said. “He can only fall straight up, then back down again.”

  “I can if I get a running start,” Grant said defensively. “And I get more height in less time than any other flight Brand on the market. As if your Skill is any better.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Before we move on, what’s a channeled Skill?”

  “It’s a very rare type of Skill,” Grant said, puffing his chest out a bit. “Most Skills are active. That means you spend MP to activate them. Then there are a few passive Skills. You don’t have to do anything to activate them, but possessing them decreases your maximum MP a bit. Channeled Skills are the rarest. They drain MP at a constant rate while in use. You can toggle them on and off as much as you want.”

  “Oh, that’s good to know,” I said. So that meant Grant’s Skill just had a total amount of time it could be active in a day. I wondered how many channeled Skills the Brokers had. I made a mental note to check for any when I scrolled through the list of Brands I’d saved.

  “Me next,” Alloha volunteered excitedly. “My Skill is called Wood Control. I can use it to control any wood I’ve touched for a few minutes. That’s why I have this spear.” She indicated the spear leaning against the table next to her. It was taller than I was. “That’s the maximum amount of wood I can control. So I can throw the spear, then use my Skill to curve it toward my target so it never misses. I can even pull it back to throw again.”

  “That sounds really useful,” I said. “Does that mean you can fly on a broomstick?”

  Alloha’s face twisted in confusion. “Umm. What? What kind of question is that?”

  “Sorry. Human thing. In my world, there are stories of witches that fly through the air on broomsticks.”

  Alloha blinked. “That’s strange,” she said. “But no. The wood I control isn’t strong enough to lift myself.”

  “Fireflies,” Victoria said. She wasn’t even looking in my direction when she spoke.

  “What?”

  “My Skill,” Victoria said. “I make fireflies.” She waved her hand at Torra sitting next to her. “Next.”

  “What does she mean by ‘make fireflies’?” I asked.

  “She creates a swarm of two dozen or so tiny balls of fire,” Grant explained. “Think of them as little Fireballs. She can send them in a direction, but she doesn’t have much control over them. They hurt a lot and they can start fires, but they’re not that deadly.”

  Victoria let out a small laugh. “They don’t need to be,” she said. “Unlike the rest of you, I actually know how to fight. Even a small opening is enough for me.”

  Grant shrugged. “She’s pretty confident in her fighting ability,” he said. “I guess we’ll see how she fares against primeval spiders. Torra?”

  “Oh right,” Torra said. He leaned forward across the table. “Hold out your hand,” he said. I did. He took his finger and drew an X on my palm. The X glowed. I touched the mark and it wiped off onto my finger.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Deadly poison,” Torra said. “I can excrete it from my hands. One touch is enough to kill a grown man.”

  “Did you just… poison me?” I quickly rubbed my glowing palm on my shirt sleeve, but it just rubbed it around like oil.

  “You’ll be fine,” Torra said. “Just use that healing Brand of yours. Quick!”

  “I’ve never used it before! Why would you do that?”

  He busted up laughing. “I’m just messin’ with you, kid,” he said. The only other member of the group that seemed to find his joke funny was Alloha. Grant shook his head, letting out a sigh.

  My heart returned to its natural rhythm. “What does it actually do?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “It just glows. I can make it a little brighter, but that’s all it’s good for.”

  “I forgot to warn you,” Grant said. “Torra thinks he’s some kind of comedian. Try not to take anything he says too seriously.”

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  doing down here?

  that out? No, on closer inspection, I see he is not quite how I remember him. He has fixed his broken teeth and is no longer emaciated with starvation and disease. He has a strong jawline—covered in a tasteful layer of stubble—and piercing brown eyes. It appears he has unearthed the sacred metal bones of the earth to construct an empty room for us. I am on my knees. He stares down at me with a smug sort of smile from atop a metal chair. It is ornamented with colorful gemstones that shine with their own internal light. He laughs at me.

  you are. Squirming in my trap. How does it feel, Vidur? To experience real pain for the first time? Do you realize I lived with pain like this my entire life? That you visited pain like this upon me?” He shakes his head almost sadly. “Of course you don’t understand...” He leans forward in his seat. “But I will make you see! I have ravaged entire worlds to create this prison for you. I captured the heart of a thousand million stars. Do you even know how large a number that is? How much energy powers this prison? No. I can see you don’t.” He laughs. “And to think I feared it would still not be enough to contain you. I over-estimated you. You seemed larger than life when you boiled the skies above and issued your curse upon me. Now you are so... tiny. Here. Let me offer some of the mercy you never granted me.” He presses one of the colored gemstones on the arm of his chair and the pain ravaging my mortal body lessens. I can stand now, and I do.

  gave me that time. Blessed me with it, didn’t you?”

  nothing! You deserved to languish in your mortal form as a lesson to the others who would seek to defy me. Your punishment was righteous!”

  son to die! What crime did I commit? Daring to speak the truth of your misdeeds? What manner of father does that to a child?! I would sooner have no father!” He leans back in his seat, as though tired of all the yelling. “And I shall,” he says in a quieter voice. “I shall.”

  kill me? That is empty bravado! Trapping me is one thing, killing something else entirely.” I stride closer to his barrier, my own words feeding me strength. “You could as soon kill me as you could snuff out the very sun. Mankind could never hope—”

  cannot know how it warms my heart to hear you say such a thing,” he says. “Let me show you something.” He presses a sequence of gems on his chair. I wait patiently. Curious. A large section of the metal earth bones that form the wall behind his chair recede to form a window. I shudder at the sight of what I see.

  anything to see you destroyed! This universe will be better without you. What is one planet, one star, against the threat of your ‘parenting’ hanging over an entire universe of innocents?”

  you caused in your quest for vengeance?”

  taught me!” he shouts back.

  you can imagine!”

  not know how many stars light the universe.

  what is your question? Speak it.”