"Calm down, Astrid." Brighid's sigh brought some measure of comfort to the girl who, despite how far she'd come, felt like a child instead of a grown adult. "I didn't react particularly well to the news you gave me, but I would also like some acknowledgement to the fact that you deliberately withheld that information from us for a year and a half and instead I was dropped into that situation without any warning."
"Yes, I should have said something," Astrid agreed. "But I also didn't want a reaction like this!"
"If you'd given me time," Brighid argued back, "I could have taken the time to see that this Muti is one of the good ones. I should have trusted you and your judgment, and I didn't. I'm sorry."
Astrid felt a hint of relief at what her mother said, though "one of the good ones" felt a little off to her. Regardless of any discomfort Astrid debated sharing, Brighid continued, "I listened to the instruction you were getting. Everything they said was invaluable, and though they simplified the concepts as they explained them, their instructions were helpful to me. Make sure you internalize what they say, because anything you internalize will shift your future ever more positively. It seemed like all of you were doing just that, so instead of talking about your lessons, tell me about the Trials!"
Astrid quickly fell into a comfortable pattern of telling her parents stories of how they'd entered and found success within the Trials. They both had already known about her boon selection at level 16, so when they heard that she was offered a very rare Class, they both had quickly done some math before her father stopped playing with her hair and instead turned her head up so that he could again kiss her forehead.
"I always knew you would grow beyond my limitations, but I never expected you to be able to do so so quickly," he sighed. "You haven't said what level you are yet, but I'm level 48 with an uncommon Class. I get 28 attribute points per level, so I only get three fifths of the attributes that you do each level."
He resumed playing with Astrid's hair after saying so, braiding it in a way that only now did she realize must have been a holdover from his time as a slave in a country that put particular importance on the way that people's hair was treated. Something that was a scar or just a remnant of his life before he met her mother. Not for the first time, Astrid realized that she'd spent precious little effort in coming to understand Muti's people's history, instead only learning how Muti had been wronged, and Astrid, not for the first time, resolved herself to be more proactive in asking questions to her friend.
"That means you gain 46 attribute points every level," Brighid said, "then that means your level growth is the same as mine is right now Steel."
Astrid blinked hard as her mother maintained eye contact and nodded.
"You never thought to insist on learning what the rarities of my Classes were," Brigitte explained as Astrid tried to understand. "My Iron tier Class, just a regular Spellblade like my original Class, was uncommon rarity. Thus, for my Class, I gained 22 attribute points per level. My current Class, Flamestorm Spellblade, is a rare Class, so an additional 18 attribute points per level on top of the previous 22. For you, as somebody with an extraordinary rarity Class in Iron, you'll gain 40 points per level, as well as those from your race."
Astrid went still as she thought about it, not counting those from her Boon of the Hero. Even if she took a common rarity Class at Steel, which she could guarantee she wasn't even going to be offered, but even if that was the case, she would be an order of magnitude stronger than her mother when she reached Brighid's level.
"Well, stop thinking about numbers, my light," Savraba patted Astrid on the cheek. "You unlocked that Class, and there were people and things and monsters, and they're all more exciting than numbers. Tell us about it!"
With that reminder of other people being in the Trials, Astrid perked up for a moment. Then, she raised her hands apologetically and said, "I'm sorry, give me one moment."
Her parents both squinted at her, but she stood up and snapped her fingers once, making all of the Wanderers' attention snap to her. "Would you all come with me for a moment?"
Skandr, sitting beside Saul and taking notes at a feverish pace as the other Wizard gave some last-minute pieces of advice, finished what he was writing before standing up and immediately going to her. Muti, in stealth but still nearby, appeared beside them as well. Benedict and Felix both took only a few seconds to excuse themselves from the conversations with their families before they too were beside Astrid. She led the party a dozen steps away before speaking.
"Skandr, how's progress on that privacy spell?"
He only smiled in response as his fingers flicked through a series of sigils and his pet cloud swelled to create a dome around the five delvers. Lightning flickered in the cloud outside, creating a constant low booming sound and Astrid nodded her thanks.
"Big decision: we don't tell our families about the forty-first floor," she said.
"But we were the most heroic there— don't look at me that way, Astrid. I know I'm being stupid, and I wasn't going to anyways, but I'd sure like to tell my siblings about more than just killing different flavor of monster," Benedict said. "There's only so far that stories about killing monsters will go."
"And when we're in some storytelling competition in the future," Astrid replied, "you can embellish and make up and tell whatever stories you want, so long as you don't announce the fact that we murdered a noble in the Trials."
"I don't wanna talk about my part in killing people to my parents either," Felix agreed.
"These 'family conversations' are a situation where it feels that danger is constantly lurking," Muti said. "I would not invite further cause for retribution from these impressive individuals." Then, in a muttered voice, she added, "I do not understand why you wish to be around families like this when they rule over you but do not offer protection."
"That's…" Astrid trailed off, unwilling to get into that discussion at the moment. Then, she ignored the comment and added, "Consider it a command if you need to. When we're strong enough to deal with the consequences ourselves, we can tell the story, not before."
The party all nodded their agreement, and Astrid continued, "What we agreed on before was that Classes we each declare to the world would be Warrior, Ambusher, Bard, Guardian, and Mage. Is that all still true?"
She looked specifically at Skandr when she asked that, and he nodded his agreement. She was surprised to hear he still thought that way, but didn't say anything. When nobody else disagreed, she continued, "Alright. Further, we're not talking about the details of the boons we received, nor the specific rarities of the Classes we received either. This information might be impressive to mention, but there's no reason to share it. Clear?"
As the rest of the party again nodded their agreement, Astrid finished, "I'm sorry for not having this conversation earlier. I just didn't think of it until this moment. Now, let's enjoy the time we have. If you'd like, Muti, you can stay near me, but I understand if you wouldn't want to."
The Barbarian nodded her thanks, saying, "I will remain near but will not confront your mother at this time. Later, when I am Steel, I will prove my strength to her."
"If that's what you want to do," Astrid answered, though she couldn't imagine that turning into a positive experience. Maybe that was a discussion she could have at a later date.
With that, Skandr dismissed the cloud and everybody returned to where they had been before. Before she could resume telling the story to her parents, though, Astrid's mother stopped her.
"That's a pretty impressive friend you've got there. You said before in your letters that his name is Skandr, right? His casting was fast, and entirely sigil based. Is he a Mage or Wizard?"
Astrid nodded, ready to answer the question when her parents looked at the other members of the Wanderers party. Before she could ask what was happening, her mother raised her voice and said, "I am told we've got an impressive Bard here who we could be hearing the story from with all the excitement that Class entails. How about we all come together and listen to the story they all tell as a party?"
"Oh, that would be lovely!" Benedict's mother chirped up. "My name is Sarah Farmer. You look to be quite the Warrior yourself! I hear tell that your daughter hasn't forgotten how to write letters. What a novelty, right?"
"Don't give her more credit than she's due," Brigid shook her head as she extended a hand to the shorter though broader shouldered woman. "Brigid Spellblade. And this child of mine forgot what a pen was until I had to remind her after six months with no word."
"You didn't send me any letters either!" Astrid protested.
"Astrid," her father shook his head gently as he took her by the shoulder. "If you open your mouth, you open yourself to chastisement and instead of commiseration. Remain silent and remain safe from your mother's ire."
Astrid followed her father's advice, instead watching as the parents all exchanged names and made her feel like a child again. Felix's mother and father had both come, and Astrid was surprised he had wanted to invite them. He said precious little about them unless prompted, but he'd slowly opened up about his life before the Bestowal. Largely, he'd worked as a bodyguard for a small-time criminal in his hometown. That said small-time criminal was a friend of his just a couple years older than him had come up, but he rarely, if ever, mentioned his family. He didn't like his past so he didn't speak of it, and the party respected that.
His father was a Cooper and his mother a Seamstress, and they seemed a little out of place as they stood beside the other visitors and delvers. His father, every part the stereotype of the tough, quiet, father, and his mother, the concerned, overbearing mother wore clean, relatively new clothing that told of a comfortable, if still limited, life.
Benedict's parents both had broad shoulders and deeply tanned features, which Astrid couldn't help but smile at. Their son, no matter how much time he spent in the sun, couldn't seem to tan at all while his parents and two younger sisters were all deeply tanned. Only his youngest sibling, a little boy maybe five or six years old, had the same complexion that he did, and little Ulrich avoided his eldest brother with an obvious nervousness. Despite knowing that his attributes far outstripped theirs, the Wanderers watched as Benedict's parents both kept hauling him into rough embraces and wouldn't let him get more than a step or two away from them as they all gathered together for the retelling of their journey through the Trials.
When the party was all pulled together, Skandr kept looking at the three present mothers, Benedict's most of all. Sarah, Benedict's mother, seemed to take notice of that and bundled him along with her children into a group with the others, and made sure to get his perspective on the story as Benedict told it from the beginning.
From the first floor to the fiftieth, a month of hard delving was summarized and the parents oohed and ahhed where most appropriate. Benedict's two sisters, an early and late teenager, had vastly different reactions to his story. The elder listened carefully, though her bearing seemed to communicate how little she wanted to live the same life while the younger one's eyes widened with no small amount of wanderlust that Astrid knew had existed in her own eyes at that age.
As a story continued, Sarah set about preparing to make some food before Greely pulled utensils, chairs, tables, and everything else one would need to prepare food for so many people out of a spatial pouch. After they all took a moment to evaluate the man with cataract filled eyes, they continued with what they were doing.
"Thank you for taking care of my boy—no, our children," Sarah corrected herself in a brief pause in the story. Then, she continued preparing the meal while gesturing for Benedict to continue its telling. Savraba and Felix's mother, Ingrid, both went to assist with the meal's preparation. Bridhid started to stand up, but was waved down by her husband, who quickly fell in beside the other two mothers in preparing the meal.
When the sun fell and the moon rose, laughter, gasps, and questions filled the air, accompanied by the popping of burning firewood. Greely had specially sourced the material and guaranteed its suitability as firewood, even within the bounds of the Verdant Sanctuary, and no angry trees started approaching, so Astrid didn't fuss about it.
"As Muti plunged her blade into the base of its neck," Benedict exclaimed, leaning over the table to ensure his sisters were listening closely, "it roared and threw her free. She sailed through the air, unafraid as the storm brewed darker overhead. Lightning crashed down again and again into the armored Boss's back and legs, but it refused to fall. Magma ichor flowed freely and filled slopes as we all worried if we'd be able to survive the fight, much less continue on our journey.
"Ever unfearing, our brave leader threw herself forward with hammer glowing from Skandr's enchantment. Lightning thundered as loudly as her hammer blows on the unbreakable shell after she left off protecting me. My song filled the air as Muti and Felix both stepped forward to distract the deadly maw and unstoppable legs. Again, and again, lightning fell onto the beast, but its shell held strong until Astrid raised her hammer and, with a prayer to the divine, struck open the sturdy defense. Shell cracked in chorus with the thunder, and finally, Skills and blade could find flesh.
"Blood burned hotter than the fire surrounding us as smoke choked to the air, but the beast was felled just as the Great One itself declared to us that the Trials were over. In an instant, we were blessed by the Dungeon and the Great One alike before being thrust from the Trials. And if you wish to see the proof of our story? You need only lay eyes upon the body of the dragon turtle, for here it remains!"
As he made the declaration, he swept his hand through the air, but Aleksandr didn't immediately comply. After a pregnant pause that had Benedict rolling his eyes, the leader of the Golden Fist swept his own hand through the air and pulled the massive corpse out of the spatial pouch he carried.
The expected gasps and cheers filled the air once the Arcanite tier delver was finished undercutting the story. Then, finally finished, Benedict sat and began to eat and drink. Hours had passed through the retelling, and he'd taken on the bulk of the work for speaking. Though the other members of the party had chimed in when necessary, they each didn't take long to realize their own meager storytelling abilities couldn't be compared to the excited Bard's. He added flourishes and details that didn't exist throughout the retelling, but nothing so egregious as to require being contradicted, instead engaging the story enough that they each considered themselves unnecessary. Throughout it all, the Golden Fist, Greely, and other visitors sat without complaint while listening and eating when the meal was finished.
As people went quiet and allowed the heightened emotion from the storytelling die, Aleksandr stepped forward.
"Thank you for allowing us to be here for this retelling. We appreciate you opening your fire to us, but our time to leave the Verdant Sanctuary is here. Before we leave, there is something we want to tell you, the Wanderers. As for you other visitors, while you're here and if you are willing to help them with this, I'm sure your children would appreciate it."
"Of course I'll help these kids live up to the potential you see in them," Sarah said with a smile. There was a chorus of agreement as Aleksandr nodded his thanks.
"Then, I'll start with this," Aleksandr continued. "Firstly, there's this: we're giving you advice because we think you can be better than we are. We've focused entirely on the things which only we can give you advice on, most especially the particulars of how to manipulate the mana you have. Having this as your foundation will make everything you do from now on be elevating you beyond your peers. The advice we'll give you now are things that you can work on among yourselves and without our physical presence and guidance. The first who will speak will be Miriam."
The Assassin stepped forward, looked directly at Muti, and said, "You can trust your blades to cut and to kill, and that's most important. You've honed your abilities in such a way, but now you have more than just the strength of your arms. Take the time to learn how to better use your mana for more than just hitting harder. Be creative with what you've been blessed with or you'll fail. Apply the learnings of Humans to the techniques of the Barbarians and you'll become something more than you've ever thought possible. Open your mind, continue to practice with your boon to discover how much more you can do."
Then, Miriam pulled her forearm-length sword from her side and cut a wound on the side of her palm. Muti nodded and allowed Miriam to press that bloody line into her forehead. Then, the Ambusher stood tall and bowed to the Assassin. Miriam stepped back and went still.
"Saul?" Aleksandr asked.
"Skandr, you know what I'm gonna say," the other Wizard said. "You haven't had time to experiment with what you can do, you were too busy doing what you could to keep moving in the Trials. You have weeks to learn now, and if I hear you're only using lightning a year from now, I'm going to come and burn all your books. Make me proud."
"Of course, sir." Skandr smiled widely as he said it, and Saul nodded once before stepping back.
"Isana?"
"Benedict," the Dungeoneer spoke with her usual offputting smile. "You must research deeper into the interaction between Skills and mana, and their true origin. Or I can come help you again! I know we've had lots of fun this week with helping you to feel that variation."
Knowing what she had put the Bard through made a chill run down Astrid's spine, even as the unhinged woman spoke with a very genuine smile.
"Don't worry! I'll learn!" Benedict protested with a faintly green face.
"I'll be next," Aleksandr said. "Felix: you've spoken somewhat with me about your internal conflict regarding your position as a Guardian, frontliner, and maybe something more. You're a frontliner. That's your position. As such, your foremost thought will be to maintain the attention of your enemies. I don't care what you have to do to do it, you already have ideas. All you have to do is get and maintain that attention. Focus on maintaining the monsters' aggression and how to keep yourself alive, and everything else will follow. It doesn't matter if you're a pretty bad wood chopper, that's not your job. Your job is to keep the monster's attention while your party rips the bastard to pieces. Anything more than that is not what you need to care about. If you're doing perfectly at maintaining your enemies' attention, then start thinking about other things."
Felix nodded, looking at the rest of the Wanderers party as he did so.
"Leah, you've got the captain," Aleksandr said once he'd gotten that acknowledgement from Felix.
"I don't like that you're having me do this in front of everybody," Leah protested in a whisper Astrid could barely hear, the words making Astrid's heart sink. "I know why you are and I don't disagree with it, but I don't like it."
With that, she turned her attention to Astrid. "You're a good fighter. You've got the basics down and you've learned how to fight monsters. You're a damn good monster killer. You're also wasting your Skills."
She stopped speaking after saying that, looking at Astrid, who blinked several times in surprise at the abrupt shift in tone. While she tried to understand what she had done to deserve this public insult, Leah continued, "All you're focused on is the Blunt Weapons Mastery that you have rolled into your equipment Skill. If that's what you're going to do, I have no idea why you have Spectre Burst and Gravity Surge. Hearing the story told tonight, it's become increasingly obvious that you haven't experimented at all with these Skills, and after you were wounded by using Immortal Warrior's Aura once, you've let that fall to the wayside as well. Why do you have Skills if you're not going to use them?
"Astrid, you're not living up to your potential. Right now, you're a strong Warrior, hard to kill, but nothing more special than that. There's the excuse of having been in the Trials and not having had the time to experiment and grow the way that you should have, but you don't have that excuse anymore and you never even asked for feedback on other ways to use your Skills. You need to put more thought into what you can do and then actually try it. You have people here who you can train with in the next couple of weeks, and if you don't get your head screwed on straight, you might as well stay Iron forever because you'll just get stronger without getting any better as you move into Steel."
Each word was a dagger in Astrid's heart as the woman she had idolized more than any other in the world ripped apart her approach, her fighting style, and who she was without any gentleness or delicacy. She held back the tears in her eyes at being publicly dressed down in such a way as Leah finished her verbal assault.
"Be better. You should be head and shoulders above every single Iron tier in existence, and instead, you've settled for mediocrity among the elite."
A painful silence settled over the group, only the crackling of the fire sounding as Astrid felt the burning in her throat as it swelled closed and tears welled up in her eyes. Then, with a shake to her voice that she couldn't manage to hide, she said, "Very well."
With her cheeks burning in shame, she turned on her heel and walked away from everybody. She only got maybe ten meters into the forest before shaking sobs burst from her throat and she leaned against a tree as she curled into a ball and allowed herself to cry.