“...Expel!”

“SCREE!!” 

With an ear-piercing screech, the winged beast we'd been fighting fell from the sky.

“That's the last of ‘em! If I'm right, Luci, isn't this the last quest we need?”

“Yep! Let's go report back.”

It's been nearly a month since our party began operating in the Territories. After we had slain the Goliath, the Instigators took their reward and retired from adventuring. We still see them around occasionally though. Since they're veteran adventurers, now at the A rank, they chose to focus their efforts on training the newer adventurers. Specifically, they made their purpose tutoring the rookies on how to fight back against the Shadows.

Killing the Goliath, in fact, did not halt the spawning of Shadows. Instead, their numbers have only been increasing, and we've discovered multiple new types too. 

First and foremost is the kind we just finished hunting. These ones, like the rest, were completely black with those tiny red eyes. The difference was the fact that these ones had wingarms in the place of the regular ones, and were loud. When they find their prey, they scream. When they attack, they scream. Then they get injured, or do anything really, they scream. These were rightfully named Darkwing Shadows.

The next type is basically the same as the usual in terms of looks, but these ones will try to ambush their victims from anywhere with. The ambushes occur from anywhere without light. These Shadows literally come from shadows. Luckily, they can be found easily by just traveling with a simple lantern or Spiritlamp. Their prefered method of attacking taken into consideration, the Guild called them Shadow Stalkers.

The final type we've discovered are less common than the rest, acting similar to how Tanks would in a party - if more aggressively. The arms of these ones don't dangle all the way to the ground, and they aren't hunched over either. The important differences began when you noticed they were a full head taller than the normal Shadows would be at full height. Add that to the fact that their arms were insanely wide to compensate for their shorter length (which was still longer than they reasonably should be), and these guys became all the more intimidating. Their habits and physical characteristics landed them the name Shadow Brawlers.

And yes, when I saw ‘we've’ discovered these variants of Shadows, I do mean my party. Only two days after completing the urgent quest, we were summoned by this branch’s Guildmaster. She - a muscular wolfkin woman who I believe prefers to use some kind of gauntlet-like weapons in combat - asked us to help out and take on as many quests involving Shadows as we could in order to combat the growing threat. In exchange, we received bonuses on top of the already high value of the quests posted by the Guild. It was during these quests that we encountered the variants, and reporting back on those also gave bonus rewards. Thanks to all of this ‘favoritism’ from the Guild, it had only taken a month to reach our current situation: The return trip after our final quest before reaching S rank.

Unfortunately our quest had us fighting at night. Specifically in harekin territory, right next to its northern border with the foxkin Tribes. When we finally returned to Lithhelm, it was already a couple hours after sunrise. Entering the Guild, we handed in our quest and gave our cards to the receptionist - whose name I've discovered to be Gina. When she returned them a minute later, the Claws of the Orange Fox were officially an S rank party, one step away from the top. Gina sent us off with a few parting words.

“Good work, you guys! Take the rest of the day off, and be ready to come back tomorrow. The Guildmaster will have a personal quest for you all.”

“Okay. We'll be here.”

The three of us parted ways, like we do nearly every time we have a day off. Usually Rick ends up trying to find Leo and Donny, and Luci always does… well, whatever it is she does, but I still don't have much of a routine for this. 

It's been a whole month now, and I've made next to no progress in magic except for learning 3rd tier Wind from Luci, so I'll start there.

Making my way to a premium bookstore I've had my eye on for a while, I fingered the money pouch I had tied to my belt. It didn't like there was much in it, only a few coins, but they were all platinum. Six of them in total. Needless to say, I would likely never have any issues with money for a very long time. While it's unlikely anyone would try to steal anything from me, it's only common sense for an adventurer to leave only what they could do without in an inn.

A already knew where I was headed, and soon enough I was greeted by the catkin girl behind the counter.

“Heya! Is there anything in particular you're looking for today?”

“Yes. Do you have any magic tomes here? I'm looking for some of at least the 3rd tier.”

“Gotcha. I'll take a look, I believe I have some in here.”

The bookstore in the Dwarven Capital was, honestly, pretty big. This one, however, would be like comparing a dwarf to a human. It's not too extreme of a difference, but there's still a very noticeable gap. Minutes later, the store clerk returned with the tomes.

“Here they are. Tomes of the third and fourth tiers. Unfortunately, the higher tomes can't be found in regular book stores, so you'd either need to be on good terms with somebody who does have one, or you'd half to find a trainer. Say… you're that adventurer that's contracted with the Guild to help get rid of those Shadow things. In that case, I'll give you a discount. How does one platinum sound?”

“A full platinum for those! Are you sure that's a discount? The tomes of the first two tiers I bought only cost a few gold…”

“I'm afraid that is a discount, and a generous one at that. Usually a third tier tome costs around twenty or thirty gold, but since most mages are capped by then, a fourth tier costs another three platinum due to its rarity.”

“Hm… I'll take them, then.”

I took a coin from my pouch and gave it to the girl. I guess I underestimated how much the higher tiers of magic would cost to learn... Ah well, one platinum coin isn't too big of an issue, I've got five more. I just need to make sure not to spend them like this…

“Have a good day!”

I spent the rest of the day learning from the tomes, and I managed to learn third tier Fire and Water spells.

The Fire spell, Wall of Flame, was a simple spell that created a short wall of fire. It's not too useful, but it could see usage when defending something.

Water had two spells in this tier. The first, was Water Blast. It's pretty simple, just a big ball of water that flies at high speeds, and could be even more destructive when combined eith second tier spell freeze, but the other spell is what just about what any water mage will fall back on as their bread and butter offensive attack. It's called Icicle. Is there much to explain? It just shoots a sharp icicle and doesn't take much mana to be effective.

It's also worth noting that mana isn't limited to a set amount for each spell. Like with the first Burst I ever cast, each spell can take as little or as much mana as the castor wants to use, but the higher tier spells will take more mana for the base effects to activate. For example, magicians that prefer to stay out of combat and enter the entertainment industry can cast Purge with less mana than usual to turn it into a simple pillar of light with no other effects.

One more thing is worth mentioning as well. My memories have been slowly coming back. I don't anything about who or what I was before, but occasionally I'll have a random moment where I say something that nobody else understands, like butter. The visions I believed to be if my past were also more frequent. All of them - three to be precise - featured the foxkin girl my party is named after. I'm starting to worry if she's alive and if I'll ever meet her, because that would be… embarrassing. To say the least.

I went to sleep that night like I would any other. My dream was the strange part. I remembered every detail after, and I had a feeling it was more than just a dream.

I was in some kind of large room. The walls looked like some sort of weird stone. The word ‘concrete’ came to mind, but I don't know what it means other than maybe the name of the stone. The floor and ceiling looked like wood, but the floor seemed harder, maybe underneath was the same material as the walls. The ceiling had these weird lights on it, almost like long, cylindrical Spiritlamps.

I held a katana before me, but unlike mine, this one felt like it was special. It didn't look too different from mine, but there was a faint, white glow to it. The three other members of my party were standing behind me. I couldn't see them, but I knew they were there. Wait a minute… three? I thought it was two… I didn't have the leniency to turn around, though.

On the opposite side of the room, facing me with hostility, was a large humanoid. It looked like is was made of metal. It was painted, and each hand had two fingers and one… thumb? It looked more like another finger that would go between the other two if closed in a fist. One hand held a giant sword, maybe twice the length of a normal human. I then noticed I had no control over my body and that it was a dream.

The metal-man started moving, but I was faster. A little more than I would be now if I used Speed. The only issue was that I didn't cast anything. I cut off the arm that wasn't holding a sword. It fell to the ground with a loud bang. A fight ensued, and I got a look at the my party members. In short, they weren't my actual party. 

One was the same orange fox-girl from my visions, letting me know this was the same. She stayed back, casting what looked to be Fireballs. Another foxkin had snow-white hair reaching halfway down her back, and her bust curvature looked to also be as soft and fluffy as the snow. She wielded a greatsword and weird spells that looked similar to the Ice division of Water magic. The third was about as tall as the white one - which is to say taller than the orange one - and had short, yellow hair. She used long, thin dagger-type weapons alongside what could only be a kind of hereditary magic, as her weapons had trails of lightning behind them as she blitzed around the enemy.

After the great start to the fight, we were clearly losing. Both of the new additions to my visions were promptly knocked away, both unconscious but I could see they were alive. The orange girl shot a large amount of her fire magic into the chest of the metal foe, revealing a human man inside. It looked like she had used too much mana in that attack, however, because her eyes closed and she lost balance. 

The man's sword was raised at an angle, about to come down on the girl. He began swinging the same moment I managed to dash up and decapitate him, but I knew that couldn't stop the momentum, and the hefty object would move with enough force to kill anybody who didn't get away just from gravity alone.

As the girl was about to be cleaved in two, I ran. I dove at her to force her out of the way. I made contact with her and shut my eyes in anticipation. There was an impact, and I opened my eyes, but before I could tell how it ended, I was looking at Luci. She had a worried expression.

“Bad dream?”

“Kinda. What gave it way.”

“You're face looked like you were panicking about something, and you're covered in sweat. It's easy to tell something was wrong. Was it another one of those ‘visions’?”

“Yeah.”

“Hit me with it then. What happened to get you this worked up in your sleep?”

I told her everything I saw just now.