The rain didn’t let up until halfway into the morning. By then we were trudging along in our wagon, bumping over potholes and generally just travelling on a long road that seemed to twist and turn all over the place.

The ditches along the sides were full, a heavy current of muddy rainwater gurgling past us except where the road dipped and we had to pass through huge, but fortunately shallow, puddles.

There were fewer trees as we travelled. The forests turned thin and the ground all around us became a marshy vista filled with the low drone of mosquitoes and flies and other bugs. Fortunately, Milread had a magic insect-repellent rune device that she activated to shoo off the bugs. It would have been a nightmare otherwise.

I focused on my hand again, first came the pushing of mana out of the... I was going to call them mana pores because that’s what they felt like, then the concentrating of my mana into a flat shape on the surface of my palm, then I thought fiery thoughts and let my mana sort of just... burn.

“You’re getting better,” Severin said as he eyed the fuzzy mana in my hand. “Zat’s not perfect fire aspect mana, but it might be close enough.”

“Really?” I asked. The lapse in concentration made my mana construct, if it could be called that, fizzle out and take a few points of mana with it. “I’ve been practicing very hard.”

“Yes. It’s almost enough to make up for your deficiency.”

“Hey!” I said. “I’m not that bad, am I?” I asked.

Severin made a wiggly motion with his hand. “You’re no prodigy. Perhaps had you started wiz holy or light spells you would be better. And you’re not exactly in a school environment. Zat might mitigate some of your slowness to learn.”

I resisted the urge to pout. “I’m trying my best,” I said. And I really was. There wasn’t anything else to do while bumping along in the back of the wagon. I could have practiced my other skills but most of those weren’t easy to do. Talking had... not been fruitful. Noemi still refused to open up and Milread had remained coolly professional.

I was beginning to think that people in this world were just not as friendly as people back home. Maybe they didn’t trust as easily, maybe there was some prejudice at play that I wasn’t aware of.

Did the ‘why’ matter?

If it was hard to make friends then I just had to work harder at it, that was all.

Severin pulled out a small notebook from his pack, opened it to a fresh page, then fished out a strange quill with a bulb near its middle filled with ink. He scratched out a quick design then turned it around to show me. “Zis is ze side profile of a fireball spell. Side profiles are deceptively simple and useless for complex spells, but for somezing as simple as fireball it will do.”

The drawing looked like a ball with a long tail behind it, like a comet, maybe. “That does look fireball-ish,” I said.

“Most spells won’t look like zeir final product at ze creation stage. But fireball is, as I said, simple. It’s made of two parts. One, if you squint. Ze main payload and ze propellant. Have you ever seen a firework?”

“Yes, a few times,” I said. Some in person and I had seen plenty on TV and online.

“Do you know how zey work?” he asked next.

“Um.” I tried to imagine what a firework’s internals looked like. “There’s a fuse, then some powder that burns through a... nozzle? And then after it takes off it eventually explodes? I guess there might be a fuse inside too?”

Severin made a huffing noise. “Zat’s mostly correct, yes. Fireball is similar. Only ze entire zing in a mana construct. Let me show you.”

“Hey hey, what did I say about no fire on my wagon?” Milread said.

Severin scoffed. “I am no fool. She only needs to see, zere is no need to use fire-mana for it.” He reached a hand out and held it palm up between us. Mana rushed out of his hand and formed into a perfect ball, then a coil came out of that and formed a long, spiraling cone. “Zis is what a fireball looks like. Once formed, you will ze mana at the base to react and it goes off.”

The wizard moved his hand over the edge of the wagon and fired off his spell. The mana, now looking like a ball of muddy... stuff, shot off into the marshes and splattered against a tree with a dull thump.

“Cool!” I said. I wondered if that could be done with cleaning magic? Something to try next time I ran into some ghosties!

“A ball of mana-constructed mud like zat won’t do much to harm an enemy. But many creatures are weak to fire. I suggest trying to form ze spell with your natural mana first. A ball of cleaning mana won’t do anyzing bad to anyone.”

“Awesome!” I said as I jumped to my feet, then windmilled my arms around to stay upright. “I’m going to practice as I walk, I can’t stand being on my bum any longer.”

The others didn’t seem to mind as I hopped off the side of the wagon and landed on the ground with barely a bend in my knees, the kind of acrobatics that would have hurt just a week ago. I hopped along next to the wagon, jumping from clear spot to clear spot along the road with only the occasional splash of mud to accompany my jumps. My jumping skill was nearly at Rank B.

Jumping
Rank C - 77%

Jumping wasn’t as practical in my day-to-day as Cleaning was, but it did give me the ability to run away from big scary monsters that Cleaning just didn’t. My other class skill, Gardening, wasn’t directly useful in combat at all. Though it was close to its own rank up too.

If I had a couple of days to just practice all of my skills I was sure I could get them all to top rank. Actually, maybe I could get the others to help a little? Makeshift Weapons Proficiency might go up with some sparring and I could definitely use some help there. Insight... wasn't going to rank up anytime soon, so I could just let that rank up organically.

Between hops I toyed with my magic, forming my mana into a ball, then trying to give it a tail of sorts, but all I really succeeded in doing was making the blob distend into a longer, less shapely blob.

Magic was tricky and hard. Which, I suppose, was only fair. It was magic, after all.

We started moving uphill, which meant less water in the ditches and the puddles in the road were easier to avoid. Not that I did. Puddles were for jumping in, after all.

I stopped advancing when I reached the top of the hill. I felt my mouth opening wide in a big ‘o’ of surprise before a huge grin took over.

Our destination was right ahead of us. Still a little ways away, of course, but close enough that if I squinted I could make out the shapes of the bigger towers and the huge, multi-levelled walls encircling the city.

Port Royal was huge, with towers all along one side and a large dock on the other where ships were hanging in the air, their big balloons bobbing just enough that I could see them moving from where I was.

The path to the sky port was cut into the mountainside, a series of switchbacks that lead off from a small town at the very base of the mountain the port was built into.

“We can see the Port!” I called back to the others.

Milread gave me a knowing smile and even Noemi looked up from staring at the road to take in the city behind me.

“Still half a day’s travel,” Milread said. That dampened my mood a little and I turned to inspect the road we would have to take to get there.

I couldn’t see all of it, of course. Even if the forest was a bit thinner, there were still thousands of trees around. The road seemed to zig and zag around a lot, avoiding the larger untamed areas that looked a little too swampy for my taste.

The only settlement I could see was the town at the base of the mountain, but I did spot a road leading off to the east and into the distant woods that way. I was practically shaking in my shoes when I jumped back onto the wagon. “I can’t wait to see what the city is like. And airships! Airships are the best.”

Milread snorted. “Sure. Won’t argue with that. The best ones are made in Farseeing, of course.”

“Farseeing?” I asked.

“Ze harpy capital,” Severin answered. “Along the unimaginatively named Harpy Mountains. Port Royal is at the base of that mountain range, though it is Deepmarsh territory, not Nesting.”

“Oh, neat,” I said. A world map was going to be one of my first purchases because I was getting lost just talking to them. “What’s Port Royal like?”

“Bit messy,” Milread said. “Lots of folks from plenty of places. Most of the expensive goods from Deepmarsh make it to the port eventually, then they’re shipped elsewhere. And the opposite is also true, you have stuff from all over the world passing through Port Royal. Lots of strange folk with strange customs. Keep your hands to yourself and stick to the cleaner parts of the city and you’ll be fine.”

“I can’t wait! Can you tell me anything about the Exploration Guild? I was thinking of joining them, but that’s mostly on a whim.”

Milread hummed. “Mostly good folk. You could do well for yourself and they might give you some training on how not to get yourself killed. Risky work, but the pay can be great. The guild works across a couple of nations, so if you like traveling they might do good by you. I work for the Courier’s Union, we use the Exploration Guild to chart out new paths sometimes.”

“Zere are some problems wiz any guild. Not just the fees and hierarchies. Ze Exploration Guild is relatively small for all zat it is spread out. The Guards Guild is bigger and safer, the Delvers more cut-throat but you’ll make more coins. The Monster Slayers will grant you access to plenty of training but you will probably die young as most of zeir members do.”

“I would like to avoid dying if at all possible,” I said. ”Maybe I’ll give the Exploration Guild a try, then see how I feel after that. I do like the idea of seeing the world and just being sort of... free. Exploration Guild people work in parties right? Like a group of friends?”

“That they do, and I wish you the best,” Milread said. She pointed ahead of us and towards a bit of a bend in the road. “We’re stopping there for a minute. Missy needs a breather and I need lunch. Noemi, you good to cook again?”

“If you have ingredients I can use,” she said.

“I’ve got some cans, some hardtack, a couple of other things,” I interjected. “I could forage a bit, if you want. I’ve got a skill for it, though it's kind of low ranked.”

“Huh,” Milread said. “Alright. Maybe we’ll take a longer break then, get a good meal in and go for longer later. I want to arrive at the Port before nightfall. If we move too fast we might end up camping within running distance of the town.”

“Wouldn’t it make sense to push on, zen?” Severin asked.

Milread snorted. “That’s what everyone says. Then you end up pushing through the forest at night and go off the road or get ambushed. Trust me, one extra night under the stars won’t hurt anyone, but I’ll be making that choice later. For now, I’ll set up some traps and maybe catch us some meat. Broccoli, get to foraging. Noemi, tend the fire and get cooking. Severin, can you keep watch and care for Missy for a bit?”

We rolled into a small camping spot next to the road, and just like that our group broke up.