(Nathan)

  Dorian rubbed the back of his neck. “I… didn’t realize I was lying.”

  Nathan waited for Polygraph ter again. It didn’t. He sighed, firming that Dorian really did exist in a reality of his own.

  “Listen brother,” Dorian said. “I’ve never run into a problem or a mohat went easy on me because it was more powerful. And you’re right, that’s unfair sometimes, but that’s part of being an adventurer. We take jobs that others ’t.”

  ‘Mother send him to the Pits,’ Nathan thought. ‘I hate that he’s right.’ He ched his jaw and ceded, gritting his teeth, “Fine.”

  Dorian narrowed his eyes. “Really?”

  Nathan sighed, already regretting his decision. “Yes. But remember: All our dedicated menders are away on tracts.” He jabbed a fi the unstoppable elf. “You’ll have to show some restraint.”

  “Excellent.” Dorian pumped his fist. “Go get year a’s meet at the training yard in an hour.” Instead of heading to either the dorms or the armory himself, he bounded off suspiciously toward the guildhall.

  Dorian

  [ dawr-ee-uhn, dohr- ]

  noun

  an unstoppable, irresistible force.

  verb

  to move unimpeded while immuo sequences.

  Nathan blinked, watg Dorian unabashedly be himself. “Is he… skipping?” He couldn’t guess what his brother nning, but he was sure it would nd them in trouble. Shaking his head, he sighed and made his way to the armory to don his armor and collect his on.

  The training field was usually packed, but Nightshade celed csses during initiation trials, allowing instructors to take on tracts and pursue their own adventurer advas.

  An hour ter, both brothers found they had the entire field to themselves, which suited Nathan just fine. He didn’t want wito the beating he was about to receive from his younger brother.

  The groundskeeper had retly reset the field; it ristine, except for half a dozen burned patches of grass. The field usually took a beating from the powerful abilities unleashed, transf it into an impromptu obstacle course with random craters, pools of va, and kes of ice, which added realism to their training. Terraf abilities were frequent enough to keep the groundskeeper busy.

  Nathan dropped into a low squat to get his circution going. “How long did you reserve the field for?”

  “Uh…” Dorian looked up from his lunge, feigning a look of innoce. “Of course I reserved the field.”

  [Lawful orb]: Lie detected.

  “Uh-huh.” Nathan sighed, giving up; they’d end up in trouble no matter what.

  Nathan wore his scaled leather armor, crafted from bog hydra hide. The deep myrtle-green scales shimmered faintly in the sunlight, a design choioufge his elven blood—handy in battle to hide when he was injured. Not that it’d help him in a one-on-one fight.

  Dorian wore his titanium breastpte, which did well to protect his core. His arms were bare and uricted. Nathan retty sure the breastpte came from a lootbox and was on-ranked, another disadvantage he’d have to overe during the fight.

  Dorian cracked his ned rolled his shoulders, signaling he was ready to fight. Nathan ed up his own stretches with a few torso twists to loosen his back. Dorian approached and tossed Nathan a healing potion.

  He watched the green vial as it sailed through the air at him. ‘Why does he insist on throwing around expeems?’ he wondered as he caught it. Nathan wasn’t worried about dropping it—the vial was impact resistant and would survive much worse in a fight. Even so, it was the principle of it all.

  Dorian held up a vial of his owween his thumb and index finger. “If either of us has to use one, we stop the fight. Deal?”

  Nathan held up his own potion to the light, examining the bottle. “Are these from the potions Ru restocked?”

  Doriaated before a weak smile at the mention of her name. “You, uh… wao ahat?” She was one of the few people that carried a with him.

  Nathan sighed, knowing they were definitely going to get in trouble for this. “No.”

  He slipped the potion into an open slot on his belt while Dorian did the same with his.

  “Remember,” Dorian said. “Drinking the potion will stop the fight.”

  “When do you want to start?” Nathan asked.

  A haze shrouded Dorian’s form. A wave of inadequacy washed over Nathan under Dorian’s judgmental gaze. If Nathan could feel the effects of his brother’s aura, that meant Dorian now sidered him a threat, and the fight had already begun.

  “Take the first shot.” A smirk crept across Dorian’s face. “And make it t.”

  The leather creaked as Nathan flexed his grip on the one-handed crystal hammer in his right hand. The hammer’s thick, diamond, sledged head refracted sunlight brilliantly. It only had a half-length shaft, but that was by design. A small ed around his wrist, attached to the end of the ha prevented him from getting disarmed, but more importantly, it allowed him to drop the hammer, freeing his hand to cast abilities at a moment’s notice.

  A longsword, his on of choice, sat in Dorian’s right hand. He wielded it single-handedly, but the pommel allowed for a two-handed grip when he needed extra force. He a down at his side. There was a savage e mark on the guard that Nathan didn’t like. It gloulsed slowly.

  ‘Ability or entment?’ Nathan wondered, and then frowned. Either way, marks like that always made it more dangerous. He’d have to get rid of that longsword. It robably on-ranked as well.

  Since Dorian wasn’t going to stop him, Nathan cast Gambler’s Toubsp;on himself. [Gambler’s Toubsp;was a Chaos ability from his Prismatic framework. It boosted a random attribute by one rank.

  He wasn’t sure which attribute would be the best to boost for this fight, but Chaos would decide that for him. He didn’t think a single boosted attribute was enough to make up for their differen rank. Besides, for Dorian, it was all a game.

  A fshing teicolored dispy of energy cycled through the various buffs before nding on yellow. For the hour, his swift attribute rose from unrao on. Which meant he was now faster than Dorian, if only by a little. Nathan had been wrong; any other attribute boost wouldn’t have made a differen the fight, but swift might.

  Wedge taught him: if you ot beat them, outruhat was back wheill attended bat csses, which was something he’d have to return to if he wao bee an adventurer. Wedge focused on teag the basics of fighting. Sometimes simple yet always dependable in any situation—that was Wedge’s way.

  After basic training, Wedge would arrange mock fights, like they were doing now, to help guild members refiheir fighting styles and focus on their strengths. But those fights had a mender nearby and Wedge to step in before things got out of hand.

  Triage showed Nathan that his brother was in perfect health. There wouldn’t be anything medically relevant he could exploit. Not that he would, normally, but he needed every advantage he could get.

  Dorian grew impatient with waiting. “e on.”

  Nathan closed his eyes on his brother, took a deep breath, and opehem to see his oppo. The hammer fell as he released his grip; the angle loosening the . He snatched onto the st few links, just before the hammer’s head touched the ground.

  With the rotation of his wrist, the crystal hammer spun up, whirring through the air. He timed the ard released, ung the crystal hammer at Dorian and opting to use the raack mode of Throwing Hammer.

  [Throwing Hammer] was a Melee ability from his Ranged framework. It allowed him to use a hammer in melee or at range. His crystal hammer’s design funed well in both roles.

  The hammer didn’t spin or twirl like a throwing k was top heavy, powered by magid it sailed straight into Dorian’s smug chest. True to his word, he didn’t move. The impact resounded, but that was all. The crystal hammer deflected off the breastpte and buried itself deep into the ground with the remaining forot that Nathan could tell, because Dorian’s aura shrouded him in shadow.

  “Nothing?” Nathan was fairly sure the attack didn’t even leave a scratch.

  While Dorian was about to taunt him, the crystal hammer suddenly dislodged itself, sailing back through the air into Nathan’s open hand. [Recall on] was the passive ability from his Ranged framework. It allowed him to bind to a on, granting the ability to call it back to his grip telekiically, at will. That earned him a grin from Dorian, who then charged at him.

  “Drop it!” Nathan’s voice echoed with and. [and] was a Willpower ability from his Lawful framework. It pelled a target to act, dealial damage if resisted.

  Dorian didn’t stop, but the longsword cttered to the ground, fotten behind him. Nathan moved quickly, taking advantage of his speed to maintain distance.

  The ground exploded upward as Dorian roared. Nathan had been there barely a moment ago. Dirt, pebbles, and tufts of grass rained down from Dorian’s sonic attack. He hadn’t expected his unranked brother to be faster than him and undershot the attack.

  Nathan spun up his hammer and u, but hitting Dorian while being chased proved impossible. Not that it would’ve mattered—a direct hit hadn’t even hurt him. Lifeforce still showed Dorian at full health.

  The unstoppable elf had already unlocked his entire powerset, which meant he had more options than Nathan. To even the odds, he’d have to take those options away. He only needed a moment with a clear line of sight to Dorian for the step in his pn. This maneuver would cost him valuable ground, but he had some to gamble.

  Nathan took a spinning leap into the air, casting Energy Leech half-way through the maneuver. [Energy Leebsp;was a Void ability from his Lawful framework. It doubled the mana cost of abilities to the target, rest that mana ba. He didn’t o get close or nd a hit—just a clear path to the target. Nathan nded, pushing hard to pick up his paow it was time to burn through mana.

  “You’re really fast,” Dorian called out to him. “That’s going to help—a lot.”

  A rainbow pyre erupted around Nathan as he activated Fme Shell a Colle on himself. [Debt Colle] was a Bance ability from his Ranged framework. It dispyed a colle ter, increasing with each missed ratack. The ratack to hit would have its damage multiplied by the ter.

  Teically, it was a loss of damage, but Natha for a couple of reasons. First, it might allow him to front-load enough damage to get past Dorian’s toughness. Sed, it was effective with elusive targets.

  He wished he could cast Life Shield on himself, but he couldn’t. At least, not at this rank. That was fine; he had other ways to dump mana, even with his inplete powerset.

  He wasn’t much faster than Dorian but stole enough ground to spin up his hammer, leap, twirl, and unother attack. There wasn’t much time to actually aim, but Debt Colle didn’t care. As long as he attacked with io harm, it added to the ter. He had to keep pushing hard to stay out of Dorian’s reach.

  He could t to six, almost seveween each cycle of attack, recall, and rueful Regeion made it difficult to spend his mana fast enough—he was still above half. Of course, none of his attacks hit Dorian, but that wasn’t his end goal; merely a bonus if it happened.

  Debt Colle hit (7), and both Energy Leed Fme Shell would o be refreshed soon. Twed attacks with his crystal hammer ter, and the ter hit (9). It was time to test a theory. He slowed, catg his breath while letting Dorian catch up with him.

  Finally in range, as Dorian closed in, his eyes lit up as he made a fist and sucker punched his brother in the obliques.

  “Ooph,” Nathan grunted as the meaty punch forced the air from him. Fme Shell took some of the edge off, but it was still weak and needed more hits to power up.

  Doriaated, gng down at his fist as he flexed his hand, notig the effects of Energy Leech.

  Nathan had aplished his goals: refreshing Fme Shell’s duration and leeg some mana back. His mana was just about topped off, but his health was down to 82% from a single punch. There was no way he could take that kind of abuse all at oo finish p up Fme Shell. He’d have to get creative.

  A different sonic attack radiated from Dorian as he took advantage of their proximity. A sharp pang raked through Nathan’s ears. Reflexively, he covered them, interrupting Recall on in mid-activation. The unguided missile soared betweeh of them, and then the ter struck (10).

  Nathan blinked away the pain, w, ‘That ts as an attack?’

  Dorian’s radial sonic attack hurt much less than his punches. Unfortunately, it didn’t i with his Fme Shell, and its timer hadn’t refreshed. The exge, however, sparked an idea. Nathan reapplied Energy Leed dashed away, disengaging from the melee. He needed a bit of spad wondered if Dorian really was going easy on him. Or if faster oppos were just a weakness of his.

  After half a minute of being chased, he gained enough ground to try something new. He spun up an attad u at Dorian. The colle ter hit (11), as expected. Then he recalled the hammer just after it sailed past Dorian, but this time he released the recall mid-flight. The colle ter hit (12) as the crystal hammer flew past Dorian in the opposite dire.

  ‘Close enough to t as an attack. Excellent,’ Nathan thought with a grin.