I spent the next while training Mana Pulse, keeping my mana at nothing. Instead of being inside my inner mana world I struggled through the experience and kept my awareness in the real world. Jessica and Zoe were practicing on their own and I did my best to breathe deep in a slow rhythm, keeping the panic my body was going through, due to having mana starvation, to a bare minimum.

Akira spent the time with me, playing rhyming word games, to practice a bit as we waited for Jessica and Zoe to exit their meditative states. It was boring but also gave me some time to just chat with Akira.

Jessica was the first to awaken and then I felt a relief of sorts, spread through my body. Taking a look at my grimoire I could see that my Mana Pulse had increased easily enough to level 10. Relaxing control on pushing my mana out through my rune stone, I could feel it returning to me, making me a little giddy at the sudden fast influx.

“Welcome back Zoe, ready for something to eat?” I ask Zoe who is waking up as she tries to focus her eyes as they flutter open.

“Hmm? Food? Ya, I could go for that in just a bit.” She said, not entirely there and still working out the kinks from the prolonged sit. We wait around a bit longer for Zoe as she seems to recover less mana slower than it does for me to get mine back from the rebound effect of Mana Pulse.

“Cara. There is an extremely important lesson that you need to learn about with regard to your soul space if you are open to practicing a little as we wait.” Akira turns to me and asks. I note that he is shifting his weight, eager or worried if I might accept or decline.

“Sure… What is it?” I ask as Jessica stops playing with Violet and Zoe gives us her undivided attention at the mention of the soul space.

“It has to deal with moving objects. The lesson is always best learned at the moment.” He says as he picks up my boot from earlier. “I will toss the boot to you, try to capture it into your soul space to prevent it from hitting you. Coincidentally, this is why arrows, bolts, javelins, or catapults are normally ineffective against a person or a fort, at least after the first salvo if they are caught unawares.” He said while turning his attention to Zoe who’s pouting as he brings up their previous argument about why he holds that projectiles are useless.

While still looking to Zoe while saying this, he tosses the boot gently towards me, testing me or trying to catch me unawares. I quickly spin my magic sphere for storing items and drill a hole through as quickly as possible. I feel the hundred mana evaporate as a faint circle starts to form. Unfortunately, the boot is already partway through the circle, and before it can start to gobble up the boot, it dissipates into nothing while still eating up the hundred mana without doing its task. My reflexes are at least on point and I’m able to block the boot with my forearms and have it fall to the ground.

“You tried to trick me,” I said with a grin as I picked up the boot and threw it back at him as best I could. He catches the boot without issue and I cannot help but lament to myself that I almost had it on my first attempt while he tried to be sneaky about it.

“Again,” he said as he tossed the boot once again in an underhand fashion, trying to catch me off guard again but I was waiting for it. The mana sphere was already spinning and I was able to easily drill the hole from the outside inward and the circle of orange smoke forms much faster in front of me and the boot slips out of existence.

“Ha, that was kinda fun!” I’m grinning from ear to ear now having succeeded the simple test that Akira wanted me to learn with only spending a couple of hundred mana in the endeavor.

“Good job, now grab your boots and let’s go get something to eat.” He smiled and turned around towards the door, which was odd, he’d never been so demanding before, I guess he must be starving at the moment.

I quickly reform a hole going from the inside to the outside of my mana sphere summoning forth the boot. As I begin to move to pluck my boot out of my soul space, the circle forms far too quickly and I find the boot flying through the air before it squarely connects with my face. Shocked, I catch the boot as it falls while Jessica and Zoe are laughing their asses off.

“Boot. Meet Face.” Zoe said before bursting into more laughter.

“That is the lesson you must always remember. If you catch something deadly, it will still be deadly unless dealt with in the split second it comes back into this state. If you ever get to the point where you can catch a collapsing mountain, don’t, find another way.” He said, sorrow laced with his voice as he exits the room.

“Wait! Mountain!?” Zoe asks as she stops laughing and immediately scrambles to get up and follow Akira out. I’m still looking at the boot, heat rising to my face as I feel a gentle reassuring pat to my head as Jessica walks passed.

“You have a mark on your face that you should wash off first before coming to dinner.” She said while trying not to restrain a small chuckle.

“Akira! You couldn’t have just said that!?” I yelled back as I put the boot on and collected the other one by the door. After a quick wash with a cloth from the corner basin, I then followed them downstairs to the inn’s main floor.

Together as a group, we ate a simple meal that was provided with our loggings, and I believe the innkeeper was a little disgruntled with us not ordering any alcohol that would be extra.

We were eating and discussing in hushed whispers in a corner, trying to go over what we’d need to know when being careful about how objects entering a soul space keep their original momentum. While we were having these discussions a messenger boy, probably a local lead guilder, came in to give us a summons to the guild to meet with the guild master.

The boy promptly left as we proceeded to rush and finish off what food we could before exiting the inn to go back to the guild to see their guild master.

Looking about it was late evening and will be getting dark soon. We proceeded to the guild at a brisk walk. Once the guild was in view, we saw the messenger boy there to greet us and bring us to the guild master’s office.

I stepped in front of the group and after taking a calming breath, I knocked on the door and waited for permission.

“Enter.” The voice was muffled behind the thick door but now with permission, I proceeded to push the door and found it quite heavy at first. Once we were clear of the door I could see the guild master that we saw ever so briefly when we arrived initially. Looking at him in earnest, he wore a predominantly black robe with accents of red and gold. He was probably 50 winters old and still had a lean and athletic build.

“Come in and sit down, I won’t bite.” He said with an exhausted smile. Entering the room fully, I could now see the previous lady in the corner behind our seats. Gulping and feeling anxious for no good reason, I proceeded to the two seats and sat down. Jessica went behind me, partially hiding or trying to stay close to me and Akira. Zoe had no qualms and simply skipped up to the other seat and sat down with a slight puff of dust.

The room was similar to our guild master’s room with tapestries on the walls and more books on the floor than there would be in a small library. This guild master seemed composed as he sat back grabbing a tea. Taking a sip, he frowned a bit and while holding the teacup in front of him he blew out a small breath towards the bottom of the cup.

A flame came to life and licked the cup like a second skin. However, as Zoe and I were only five or six feet away we could not help but flinch at the sudden unexpected spell. Zoe jumped with a strangled yelp, coming down and releasing another cloud of dust as I could hear the click of a sword from Akira being loosened from its scabbard and the ring of the metal clearing it.

We froze and I now realize that the guild master was watching Akira. Breaking my gaze away from the guild master I turned around to see Akira with his sword drawn in his left hand at the neck of the female mage in the back corner. Her eyes were wide as she was still resting against the wall and now pressing herself back into it so much I could swear that if she could, she would have merged with it.

“Akira! Stop you shouldn’t be…” I started to say, however, the guild master cut me off.

“No need, it is my blunder for not providing a warning. I often forget myself when going for my comforts.” He said as he held up his tea and took a sip.

“Curious as to why you went for her and not me? Is the lady a young noble and you, her guardian? Or are you truly a familiar?” He asked as he sipped his tea without too much concern with what was happening in his office. His calm was creeping me out, as though everything was still in his control.

However, after a long silence, Akira kept staring down the guild master who just kept sipping his tea that was being heated by the fire spell.

“Nothing? You mute?” The guild master was now becoming annoyed with us.

“Akira, please stand down for now,” I asked in a whisper and with a reluctant sigh, he released the female mage from the end of his sword. As I looked back to the guild master, his amused look was back as though he had found a new puzzle.

“So familiar or guard?” He asked, sipping some more before reaching for the white glass teapot to top up his cup.

“Familiar…” I said in a quiet voice, looking down and not watching as the guild master re-lights his cup to warm it up. Thankfully, I can see that Zoe has adopted my strategy and is looking down and managed to suppress the flinch at the fire magic being used again.

“Noble little miss or no?”

“I’m not.”

“Interesting, interesting. And now, why her instead of me? I do not take well to being ignored.” He said with an amused look on his face.

“Umm…” I just don’t know how to answer that. I turn around to look at Akira and nod my head towards the guild master, hoping that he’d sate the man’s curiosity.

Frowning for a second, Akira, finally responded and my heart almost gave out.

“She was an unknown threat and someone using fire magic is just asking to be put out of their misery.” I snap my vision up to the guild master to see how he’d take the verbal jab from Akira. I should have told him to play nice…

Thankfully, the guild master just wore a confused look at first before looking around and then finally throwing his head back to laugh.

“Well, you are right that the collateral damage in here would destroy enough to make me wish I was dead, though it would also get rid of a major source of my daily misery. Anyways, how did you get caught up with the Slak smuggling?”

Glad at the slight change in topic and slight de-escalation, I proceed to give an overall rundown of events with the guild and our relatively uneventful trip to the guild master.

“So a forced requisition… Not a bad idea. I’m sorry to say that I’m stuck as well, your capabilities are not at bronze, however, the fighting capabilities of your familiar are beyond that. This leaves me with some difficulty. I should demote you here to your proper position, however, your battle capabilities seem to be higher and I do not want a strike from any nobles against my guild.”

“If we get paid for the bandits we brought in, even if you demote us, we’ll be on our way back to Denvetti and out of your hair, sir,” I said, just wanting to leave the office.

“That’s just it. Bandit bounties are normally handed out only to silvers, in some rare cases, to bronzes. If I hand it out to lead mages, then any review of my books will probably earn me a strike by the nobles.” He said, leaning back and sipping at his cup while taking a look at the ceiling.

“Oh…” I was not aware of those kinds of details.

“The problem is that I have bandits that need to be logged and when we do that, we take a charcoal rub of the plaques. Do you see the problem?”

“I’m sorry sir, I don’t.” I just want to leave.

“The problem is that your three plaques are bare of pretty much anything and nothing denotes that they are bronze versus silver except for the catalog of completed requisitions. With yours being blank I’ve got an issue with my records and I don’t dare hide the bandits that were seen coming into the guild nor lie about receiving them or give them to someone else.”

“So we just need a few more stamps?” I ask, hopeful that we’d be able to flee back home at the earliest opportunity.

“Yes, I’d need at least a bronze requisition for my own records on your plaques to let you fall into the special case, however as a pair of plant mages and a wind mage there really are not any bronze requisitions you can do that involve skill.” We all snap our heads up to look at the man at that slight.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. You there, are you able to go to the mines and clear out entire corridors of poisonous and explosive gases?” He asked, pointing to Zoe with his teacup. She flinches a little, however after considering the questions she starts to shake her head no in response.

“And nobody has bronze plant requisitions, so what are we left with?” He asks again and after we do not respond he fills in the blank for us.

“Only thing left is fighting, which he obviously can do, and going by the sword at your hip girl, maybe he’s training you too? But those are normally left for silvers, thus bringing me back to the same starting point.” He said with a sigh.

“We had fought with something called an Ursa on the way here,” Akira mentioned which had the guild master and lady look at us. I could not muster the strength to say that it was emaciated and ultimately was eaten by Git. Akira seemed to like to use half-truths and let others come to their own conclusions as I remember my earlier boot to the face.

“We do not have any Ursa requisitions, but I do have a silver Guar requisition that I can demote to bronze. I’ll have some unhappy silvers in my own guild but that would work…” The man muttered to himself.

“What are Guars?” Zoe and I ask at the same time.

“Solitary hunters normally, however with the mating season approaching the males are gathering kills to provide to females to try and win them over. The odd trapper or most likely the many farms in the region will lose a bunch of fat animals that will be brought back as offerings to potential mates.”

“So do we have to protect the farms or cull the Guars?” I ask the guild master who seems more and more excited at a possible resolution.

“You’ll just need to cull a dozen, extract their bladders and hopefully they are full enough. You just need to drip the urine every couple hundred meters in the forest far enough away from the farms that the beasts just go deeper into the back forests instead of down towards the town or the farms further east and north.”

“And we’d find them where?”

“They live in the mountains and are already starting to come down. We already have a silver team going north and west.”

We discuss a bit more about the quest and have our bronze plaques returned with where we can grab more details on the requisition. We cannot leave that office fast enough and return back to our inn as darkness finally sets in.

Once back in our room and before we all squeeze into bed, I join Jessica by the window as she looks up at the night sky.

“Slim pickings right?” I say as I saddle up beside her. Looking out at the night sky where three quarters is currently claimed by the devourer and only leaves so many to choose from. Looking down at the window sill I see that Jessica is using a piece of charcoal to dot a few stars out. Looking up at the sky, I cannot seem to find those ones.

“Which set are you picking?”

“Just the ones over there that kind of look like a tree.” As she points off to just above the treetops in the distance.

“You sure you didn’t actually pick a ghostly tree in the distance?” She laughs a bit before picking up my hand and helping me point at what stars she chose.

“Those ones there.”

“Ah, okay the ones that look like two drunk dancers fighting?” I earn a swat from her for that and we end up giggling as we crawl into the bed.

“Oh, this feels so comfortable,” I say to the other two as I start to sprawl across the rough sheets.

“Anything would feel amazing compared to the ground,” Zoe answers back as she too is fully settled in on the far corner away from the window.

“You going to attempt to form your soul space right away?” I ask Jessica while trying not to frown with a bit of worry.

“I’m just going to try forming the sphere and will try the actual soul space tomorrow morning. I just needed to memorize the set of stars first as they would not be around tomorrow morning.” I got in reply.

“Okay.”

We all decide to attempt going to sleep with my void trick and I feel excited to maybe learn how to use the sword some more tomorrow and have plans to try using up the salt first with some other magic training.