Nyla was not awake when I left. My departure was early enough that the halls were still swarming with monsters. I didn’t care that it wasn’t my duty; I cleaved through the first group of slimes and skeletons I ran across. The destruction fed my armor and slowed the maelstrom brewing within me.

  I lost myself in the slaughter as my own actions haunted me. Fyrnell had stuck by me when I stopped sleeping, but I drove them away because they always supported my dreams, not what I thought I wanted.

  Like the imp blood running beneath my feet, that should all be water under the bridge. I was wrong at the time, but that didn’t stop me from bristling when they called me ‘princess’ again. It’s so fucking stupid. I tripped a bone golem and rode the body down a stairwell. Near the bottom, I leapt and smashed the creature’s head with both of my feet.

  Jeremiah’s team was formed up at the landing and had just finished a wave of monsters. He gave me a puzzled look. “Mari? You’re a first year, right? Why are you stealing our EXP?”

  His Vanguard barked a laugh as he rested a massive axe on his more massive shoulder. “Even I have heard of Exemplar’s bloodlust. It’s more surprising she hasn’t interfered more.”

  I swiped my glaive to flick the blood off. “Any heroic heart thrills at purging monsters. That’s not bloodlust. It’s a thirst for justice.”

  The Vanguard elbowed Jeremiah. “See that sparkle in her eyes? That’s the face of someone who loves killing.”

  Jeremiah pushed him away and approached me. “If you really want to help in the purging, our Guardian slept in.”

  Every fiber in my being wanted to say yes. Butchering monsters with reckless abandon was so simple and good that the siren’s call was hard to resist. I sighed, “Sadly, I have an early class. Reckless haste pushed me past your battlelines, and for that, I apologize. By-your-leave, I must depart.”

  “Uhhh, sure. Oh! Um, do you want to hangout later?”

  I paused. “As in a dungeon run? I could be amenable to that, but I’ll have to ask my team first.”

  Jeremiah deflated. “Sure. That’s what I meant. Sounds good! Let me know.”

  My fellow Crafter probably wanted someone with him who would slay monsters without ruining the materials. He should also have plenty of experience with the lower tier dungeons I still needed to explore. The arrangement could be ideal.

  In short order, I was one of the first to arrive at Advanced Sparring. All the damage from before had repaired itself. I paced as I pondered how to beat Gabriel today. Aside from the augmented flail, I didn’t have any new tools. I suppressed the urge to berate myself for not creating more new gear and focused on novel combinations of my current tools. There has to be something else I could do…

  The problem with being at the top of my game, is that there are no sudden spurts of inspiration. I needed to Craft.

  When Gabriel entered the arena, he seemed lighter on his feet. The burden from yesterday was gone. He smiled as he elongated his fingers into one-third-meter spears of bone. “Professor, if I brought a healing potion for my opponent, can I go harder?” The imitation of his own voice was impeccable.

  Burn Bright shrugged. “No dismemberment and don’t gouge out any eyes.”

  “Good.” Gabriel nearly purred the word before catching himself with a grimace and charged. Faster than yesterday, he pointed all his fingers forward and stabbed his right hand at my eyes.

  I wedged my glaive’s blade into the claw. He crossed his fingers and caught my weapon before driving his other hand toward my gut. I caught those spears with my left hand, but my right wasn’t strong enough to hold my glaive steady. Gabriel slowly twisted it to my right. I then braced a foot at the other end to stop the rotation.

  Since my glaive was no longer between us, we headbutted each other. The crack of keratin rang through my ears as large solid strands fell from the shapeshifter’s skull. “Hardheaded as always,” he said before his tongue turned into a snake and lunged for my throat.

  I jumped back, abandoning my glaive, and threw a kunai down the snake’s throat. The metal ruptured down the animal until Gabriel caught the knife in his teeth. That smile and blood running down his jaw reminded me of better times.

  Before a roundhouse kick from Gabriel could strike me, I drew my shield and blocked it. As Gabriel kicked off the circular metal, I grazed his knee with my boneshaking flail. The resulting convulsion sent him sprawling, and my glaive clattered away from him.

  He kip-upped to his feet and roared. Scales grew on his hands and neck as the roar’s pitch rose half an octave. Gabriel broke out of his frenzy and clutched a hand around his throat. In that moment of weakness, I shattered the ground to jump and bash him with my shield.

  At the last instant, my opponent hopped and grabbed the shield with his claws. I slammed my flail into his side before we both tumbled to the ground. The bone shaking distracted him enough that I ended up on top with my shield between us. I released both of my weapons and started punching him in the face.

  “You’re close,” I whispered. Part of me was thrilled at Gabriel joining me on this path. Another part wanted him to suffer every indignity that he put me through. “What ideal combat form could you take with Exemplar’s help? That’s the path to victory. You know it in your bones.”

  Gabriel’s muscles tried to flex on their own, but he suppressed them. Fighting himself and me was impossible. I continued to rearrange his teeth until the Professor called the match.

  Burn Bright shook his head. “Gabriel, if you don’t stop half-assing it, I’ll get Exemplar another partner. Furthermore, while restrictive garments are good for training, you’re a shifter and need to be able to freely change size. Your team’s Crafter should be able to make resizing clothing.”

  Gabriel didn’t say a word as he left the classroom. I waited for Nyla to finish her bout with a lighter spirit. A bit of monster slaying followed by kicking Gabriel’s ass did much alleviate the stress I had accumulated. Over the years, I could pick out the little tells in myself that signaled emotional disturbance. Managing those was like polishing a blade, something you did out of necessity.

  Valkier, the Valkyrie, circled Nyla with her wings. When her powers refreshed, she charged through Nyla at hypersonic speeds while wrapped in a shield of invulnerability. Nyla was a dark splotch with wisps of violet surrounding her. Valkier’s ability infused charge was too fast to react to. She slammed into Nyla, who didn’t move. Her black fires devoured the kinetic energy while violet energy probed Valkier’s shield for weaknesses.

  The two were separated before Valkier’s shield faltered. Nyla tried throwing a firebomb at her, but flying targets were difficult to hit for someone who started practicing a week and a couple days ago. The bomb exploded as it missed the Valkyrie. Valkier wrapped herself in her mechanical wings and weathered the fires without problem.

  Their frustrating duel ended after Burn Bright decided they were both too tired to avoid an accident.

  I waved to Nyla as we walked to the showers, and she scowled at me. “Is this the part where you tell me what I did wrong?”

  “No.” I was puzzled. “You clearly know what you need to work on, and it’s not like my ability gives me any special insights into teaching throwing skills.” Exemplar helped you learn.

  We hit the cleaning motes of the bathroom and let them do their work. Nyla sighed. “Sorry, I’m used to my teammates thinking I’m dumb and needing advice all the time.”

  “Tis the lot of Vanguards. Most assume that those diving into the fray and intentionally aggravating monsters are either stupid or suicidal. Really, have they never considered that it is fun?”

  “Yeah…” Nyla’s voice trailed off as she turned away. “I-I have to get to class.”

  Did she not love monster slaying? Not every Vanguard—or hero—did, but then why was she so content yesterday? I used to sneak out and kill that which bumps in the night too. My mother kept hoping that I would go to parties. I never saw the appeal.

  Once the motes were done scrubbing, I went to my next class, and immediately began working on a new weapon.

  Vanya poked my shoulder as she sat down. “What was that yesterday about ‘not always’ being treated like a human?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Surely, you can sympathize.” I placed my envenomed-morphic-void-steel-ingot next to the bladedancer fibers and visualized how I wanted them to go together. While the bladedancer’s blades were extremely sharp, their monomolecular edge worked from exactly one angle, requiring precision down to the arcsecond. Aside from that quality, they were relatively fragile and had narrow applications as a weapon.

  “Damn right, I can sympathize. You can vent to me.”

  Deflect deflect deflect. “Very few people in my Ward saw me as a person. To them, I was a bastion of safety in a world full of terrors. They would talk to me and try to be friendly, but behind the platitudes was that survivor’s instinct driving them to get close to me. I didn’t begrudge them for that. Those I cared about tended to live longer, but it does make the relationship hollow.”

  Vanya rolled her eyes. “Yes yes, it must be SO isolating to be SO loved and respected, but my ‘elven eyes’ can see that’s bullshit. What did you really mean?”

  Okay, a deeper distracting truth then. “Did you know I can’t poop anymore?” Vanya only blinked. “It happens around 30% shade replacement. How many myths mention bathroom activities? Most heroes never get that high, so it isn’t widely known.”

  “What?”

  “Have you never been to a grove of powerful elves? The lack of lavatories doesn’t mean they all shit in the woods. The vast majority of them don’t need to go.”

  Vanya hunched forward and whispered harshly, “Of course I haven’t been to a grove! Are you insane? Elves go to those to heal from eons of pain. What the hell were you doing in one?”

  “My first escape from Fa?rie led to it. I know. No hero should be ensnared by the fey lands more than once, but I needed a second trip to correct the temporal distortions from the first one.”

  She shivered. “That’s the last place I want to go.” Distraction successful! “But don’t think you distracted me from—”

  Professor Gyro spared me from further diversions as she began today’s lecture. “Today we’ll be going over the limits of enchanting.”

  She drew a circle on the board and wrote in it as she talked.

  “The efficacy of enchantments are bound by the MP capacity of the object being enchanted. But what is ‘MP capacity’? All of you should be familiar with the experimental charts quantifying the exact amount of MP that specific substances can bear. That would be sufficient if you worked within known designs and only engineered them to specific solutions.

  “All of you will be required to push beyond what is known, and for that, you need a deeper understanding. MP capacity represents the malleability of the concept behind the material. The charts you memorized are not true. They are averages. You’re great grandmother’s china that has been in the family for centuries has a far higher MP capacity than the same set fabricated yesterday. So why isn’t every magic item created from artifacts with a story?”

  Dead silence answered her question until the boy who was almost eaten yesterday raised his hand. “Uh, supply limit.”

  Gyro wobbled a hand. “It’s a factor, but the ruins of the old world are ripe for the taking. No, the real reason you don’t normally use materials enhanced in this way is because they have unknown effects on the end product. If your great grandmother was a kind lady, meals served in those dishes after enchanting them might grant restorative effects. If you’re from a long line of assassins, then the same enchanting structure may result in plates that subtly poison all food served in them.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Crafters tend to hate this randomness. That’s why you rarely see bounties for specific monsters. They don’t want the pelt of the dire lion that stalked your neighborhood throughout your youth until you finally slew it under a blood moon. They want you to find a random lazy shit sleeping on a rock and peel its hide.”

  She drew a line labeled ‘tangent’ and continued.

  “Oddly enough, the inverse is true for enchanting materials, depending on your language. High Elvish and Starsong won’t focus what you’re using like more strict languages, so you have to keep a closer eye on what you’re using to charge your engravings, but—”

  A scribble of chalk went over that bubble.

  “That’s a future lecture. We need to go over the ins and outs of MP interactions with aligned MP capacities, which is the technical term for storied objects. See if…”

  As Gyro lectured, I worked on my device and this time showed it to Vanya as I worked. I wanted to create blade segments from my ingot and bind them together with the fibers so that the final result rested in the shape of an axe. While Vanya examined my idea, I looked over her revolver idea. It wasn’t complicated. She wanted to do everything her bow did, but with one hand to better make use of her True Aim ability.

  She passed my idea back. “Why an axe?”

  “Axes are cool.”

  Vanya gave me a flat look. “You have to have a better reason than that. If you make a sword that relaxes, then you’ll have a flexible weapon and a sturdier blade with longer reach than the haphazard axe shape.”

  She was right, but a sword was so mundane that I wanted to try something creative. Alas, sometimes the basics were basic because they worked. “A blade might be best… Now for your gun, I strongly recommend against the pistol. While they can be powerful if they have extreme kickback, submachine guns are going to be more powerful with larger rounds. Longer bullets have more powder and longer barrels give them more time to accelerate.”

  “I thought about that, but a revolver gives me more round by round decisions like my bow’s arrows. More of my current combat techniques should transfer over.”

  I rubbed my chin and hummed. “What about a grenade launcher? I still think the bow is a fine weapon, but if you’re dead set on modernizing, then an automatic weapon for single targets and an AOE option could be quite effective.”

  We continued to talk technical details as we worked on our respective devices well after the end of lecture. The classroom had a larger smelter and forge than in my room, which I needed for steel this difficult. It approached evening before I could do the actual enchanting. Due to my power source limits, I added animate runes to firm the sword on command instead of motive or stasis runes. All my materials coming from corpses should enhance the necrotic effect.

  “You’ll never be good enough.” A voice whispered as though through meters of loam on a dark night.

  Vanya startled as I was powering my runes. “Was that your elemental?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, it thinks it’s cute.”

  “Not an it…”

  Vanya leaned closer to the crystal. “What’s your name, little guy?”

  “I don’t know.” Hissed the icosahedron.

  “How about I call you ‘Greenie’?”

  “No. You’re dumb.”

  I put a hand over the crystal. “Let’s leave them alone for now. They’ll have more to say later.”

  “You know you’ll have to make a body for them soon,” Vanya said.

  “I know…” Not every Crafter cared, but I thought it was foolish to brutalize an elemental that might one day return and anger an Elder with their tale. “They need to develop more sapience first, and then I have to figure out a safe body for them.” One of Riena’s drones could work.

  Once the last rune was empowered, I stowed my supplies and held up the weapon. The texture of the single-edged sword rippled in the light, ever shifting and changing. From deep blacks to dark blues, the green runes faded into and out of sight along the fel blade. The crossguard was made from clicking giant’s bones. The mechanisms would wound the fibers running through the segments taut as I willed. With a flick of my wrist and a bit of intent, the blade relaxed into segments and elongated to bisect a training dummy.

  Vanya clapped before hefting her new grenade launcher onto her shoulder. “Congrats, you made something competent.”

  “Such damning praise cannot dampen my jubilation at finally creating a tier 3 item.” My face hurt from how hard I was grinning. Distantly, I observed myself experiencing the emotion and noted the differences between this joy and the rush of visceral combat. It was a duller and steadier feeling. I doubted Crafting alone could sustain me, but as long as I was making tools for war, I wouldn’t find this activity wearying.

  “Did you improve by a tier in a week? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Two.” I flashed her that many fingers. “I had only made tier 1 items before enrolling.”

  Vanya shook her head. “That ability of yours is nonsense. If it wasn’t for the accelerated shade growth, I would have taken it during initiation. Instead I got this.” She took a step, and I could no longer hear her heart beating.

  I spun towards her and looked around. She was clearly visible, but my eyes struggled to convince my ears she was there. Sounds that should have bounced off her didn’t. She had effectively disappeared to my auditory senses. “Woah.”

  “Please don’t make fun of my shitty power.”

  “Can you hear while using it?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, it’s not that bad.”

  “With smoke bombs and blind-fighting techniques, you could discombobulate most foes. The right alchemical mixture could disrupt sight, smell, thermal, and MP senses, leaving you effectively invisible to foes.” Oh the things I could have done with such an ability.

  “Elves can’t echolocate. I thought you knew more about us than that.”

  “It’s a trainable skill.”

  Vanya rolled her eyes. “And how many centuries does that take to master?”

  “With our enhanced senses, a blinded hero tends to take ten years before it's nearly equivalent to vision. The range and speed limit is still devastating, but the all-around perception is a lifesaver. I recommend that every hero invests time in partially developing the skill. Without it, I would have found my end in a Trow dungeon.”

  Vanya nodded along until I mentioned my daring escape. Her eyes widened and features became hostile. “Don’t talk to me about Trow!”

  “Sorry? I didn’t know you had an aversion to them.”

  “Obviously I have an aversion to them. They’re demons!”

  I let the statement hang. She had made her position clear and there was no need to dig further. Trows are the product of the High Fey doing to demons what they did to humans. Elven enclaves and Trow strongholds tended to have friendly relations as many shared relatives through their fey ancestry, even if the two could rarely interbreed otherwise.

  “You…” She lets out a breath. “You probably didn’t mean anything by it. When most people mention the Trow around me, it’s just a set up to compare me to Trow or ask if I know any Trow, implying that I’m a spy for the demons. And no, I don’t know any Trow.”

  “Really? The Spider Trow that ate my eyes still sends me letters. We’re still arranging a good time to fight each other to the death.” I sighed. “I don’t range as far as I used to, so it’s been hard to set up. That and she has a brood to rear, which isn’t easy after eating her mate. One day our ships will cross again.”

  Vanya stared at me.

  “The Trow are a collection of many different species since demons themselves are so varied. Most people are familiar with the fey-touched orc variety, but even goblins have their Trow versions. Really Vanya, if I had a foot in the door like you do, I would have spied on our enemies more thoroughly.”

  “We’re nothing alike. There is no ‘fey’ in our blood. That’s just a curse and corruption of our shade, which demons don’t have. I’m human. The Trow are monsters that want to kill all of us. A Trow might only speak with me because they, like most humans, mistakenly think I’m a monster.”

  I braced myself to share an unpopular opinion. “Just because monsters aren’t human, doesn’t mean they can’t be people. They have reasons, circumstances, and deeply incompatible cultural perspectives that set them against us. We aren’t fighting because they are inherently evil. It’s always more complicated than that. Understanding your enemy is key to exterminating them.”

  Vanya grew more incredulous until the end. “You had me worried that you were a monster sympathizer.”

  I sighed. “Most heroes can’t internalize our foes’ personhood without developing a compulsion to save them. This is a weakness that clouds their vision and inhibits their fighting prowess. I will suffer no illusions about what I do. The cause is to defend humanity. The acceptable means are whatever works.”

  “Surely, working with Trow wouldn’t help.”

  “Why not? Many of their species don’t think about humanity. The world is vast. Far enough past our borders, few have heard of humans. Our enemies are not unified. A careful assasination and planted evidence could start a blood feud that sets whole mountain ranges ablaze. Baiting a high tier monster into a community of other monsters kills them as effectively as a concentrated purge. With so many foes, personal effort alone—if you’re not the Savior—is insufficient for victory.”

  Vanya scowled. “This is the only reason you tolerate me, isn’t it? No matter what I say or do, you’ll see me as a monster to throw against other monsters.”

  Duh.

  My silence lingered for too long, and Vanya interpreted it as the confirmation it was. “Man, fuck you.”

  She stormed away with a faint misting in her eyes. Wearily, I brainstormed the lies and gestures required to mend our relationship. I liked Vanya. She was humanity’s ally. It didn’t need to be more complicated for me. But like most people, Vanya couldn’t handle my naked honesty. It had to be dressed up in nice words, careful tones, and a pageantry of little actions that didn’t really mean anything.

  Once I gathered my things, I returned to my dorm and moved on to my next task. The team was gathered around a table in the living room. A painted square of foldable cardboard was arranged between them. Upon it rested a variety of plastic and metal shapes with arcane purposes beyond my grasp. Arrayed before my companions were smaller rectangles of cardstock. They held these icons with the fierce interest of combatants selecting their next tool.

  Casimir grinned as he slapped a card on the table. “I play Arcane Conflux, which lets me gather three sapphires and move my merchant three spaces. That places me on the warpway I set up back IN ROUND ONE.” He cackled as he moved his pieces to a different section. “I then spend one of the stones to cross the portal and end the game with more mana geodes than any of you!”

  Riena unfolds a couple of her plastic pieces. “Ah, but you forgot my golems are geode powered, so with these four, I’m one ahead.”

  “Shiiiit, come on. Those can’t count. Let’s check the rules.” Casimir grumbled about the stupid unbalanced construct expansion.

  Derek seemed happy to be part of the group while Nyla was resisting the urge to fall asleep. I placed the materials I didn’t need on the counter rather than in my room. That encounter could wait until later.

  After Casimir groaned in defeat, Riena gave me a smile that made my heart flutter and said, “Do you want to join us? I think this game can play five.” She then glanced at my heart and it stopped fluttering.

  “Actually, there is an infernal sepulchre I want to raid. It’s infested with imps, fire elementals, and sludges. That would make it a tier 2 dungeon, but a Demogorgon occasionally tends it like a garden. Technically, it jumps to a tier 5 dungeon, but he normally challenges students with riddles and will only steal their shades if they get them wrong. Do you all want to come with me?” Jeremiah might be free if they say no.

  Riena paled. “That sounds risky for our first dungeon crawl.”

  Nyla whooped. “I’m in!” Casimir and Derek also nodded.

  Riena glanced between them. “What am I missing? This seems like a needless risk when there are plenty of stable tier 2 dungeons to raid for supplies.”

  Derek started putting away the boardgame. “If we aren’t risking our lives, then our shades won’t grow. I was dreading running safe low tier dungeons to get Mari basic materials. While a Demogorgon would be tough, this one has an alternative means to defeat it.”

  Casimir carefully sorted the cards into seven piles. “Agreed. The chance of a lethal fight is mitigated twice, meaning this is likely a milk run to help us build teamwork before the excursion this weekend. If worst comes to worst, Exemplar has killed tier 5 monsters before. With our support, she should be able to handle another one.”

  Nyla’s fist roiled with white flame. “Not if I kill it first!”

  “I would focus on spell eating flame if I were you. Demogorgons wield mighty curses and death effects. If you’re caught unawares, they’ll turn you inside out,” I said while checking my gear as we formed up by the door.

  Riena looked nervous. She saw that each of us were ready for this and drew on our determination. “Okay, let’s do this. Casimir, I would like pointers as we walk. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  He nodded as we left the dorm. “Sure. The most important duty of a Commander is to issue orders. Don’t build consensus or ask for opinions. Everything is a Command. ‘Mari, check for traps’, ‘Derek, defend this area’, ‘Cas, stop kicking so much ass and heal Nyla’.”

  “Hey!” Our Vanguard shouted from the front of our formation. Derek trailed her down the stairs, and was followed by Casimir and Riena. I brought up our rear. Because of the bond, we didn’t have to talk about it. Nyla needed to be free to charge our foes while Derek defended the team. I had to protect our backs from a surprise assault.

  Casimir continued. “You need to take in the big picture so that we can all focus on our roles. Speaking of roles, I assume that Mari knows the Crafter’s role.”

  A vine slowly uncurled from the ceiling to expand its bloom and shower us in poison. Through the bond, Casimir felt the danger I saw and flicked his wrist to conjure a swarm of locust around the plant. I answered as they munched, “Primarily, I make everyone’s jobs harder by telling you where to hit or what parts to avoid for later salvage. I’m also supposed to counter unique problems while supporting everyone else’s role. We’re in an awkward position where Riena is better at that.”

  “I haven’t been in combat before.” Riena denied my assertion. “My drones have seen action, and I brought a lot of tricks, but… this will be a first for me.”

  “That’s why we’re going to a tier 2 dungeon.”

  We fell into silence after that. Riena was too worried to keep talking and the rest of us settled into the familiar mindset of us versus the monsters. We would storm one of their lairs and either kill them all or die trying. In these moments leading up to killing, a tightness in my chest would relax. Soon, I would be doing the one thing I was truly good at.

  Down the stairs we wound into the catacombs. I navigated around the twisting corridors and took us to a set of double iron doors with a horned metal skull resting atop them. The heat from the other side was fierce enough that a current blew from the door, making the skull seem like it was breathing. The doors themselves were scribed in an unknowable language. Some portal somewhere had vomited this artifact and a monster sealed their lair with it.

  The catacombs had existed before the school and even predated the construction of Last Stand. No one had explored all of it nor knew its full history. Maybe humans had built this place to inter their honored dead. Or perhaps, this was a holy site for elementals. The original intent of a structure didn’t stop demons from co-opting it.

  They had stolen our world after all.

  I solved the trivial disk puzzle around the entrance and the doors opened to our team's first adventure.