The fast-growing grass is not what manages to scrape the skies; only trees can do that. They take their time, they grow at a steady pace, and while grass burns itself out low to the ground, even the weakest sapling will reach higher if it has the patience.

  - Elvish Proverb, from a land without bamboo

  The dewy smell of the humid night air is enough to crowd out all other scents as we walk down the slope toward the lake. Even in the dead of night, the water of Maidenlake still clings to the heat of the spring sun. Strangely, even the water in the air is reluctant to leave the plateau, leaving everything feeling unnaturally sticky throughout the day and night. For the two weeks the army has been stationed in the city, it has never rained, but the level of the water in the lake has refused to drop an inch.

  After asking three people about the strange lake so high up in the sky and receiving three different answers, I put the mystery aside. I can still admire the beauty of the city on the shores of the mystical water without needing to figure out its secrets.

  Wagons, each draped with the red and green banners of the adventurer’s league mark our destination. The checkered pattern is identical to the one I saw hanging from the Adventurer's Hall back in Danfalla, the only break to the boxes of color being an insignia of a black, crossed sword and staff. Sitting lifeless, more than one of the wagons lying on the bare earth with its wheels removed, they lend the warehouse an ominous air.

  A pair of green lights shining from spheres pressed into the wall illuminate the front door of the building and a man sitting in a chair, reading a book. The guard at the door glances up as we arrive, checking the credentials we have been issued, and leading us through the three layers of security arrays that protect the building. Illigar the Sage wastes spares no expense when it comes to security.

  Verneaus veers off from me immediately after we enter, heading for the door to the main floor where all of the loot I we collected over the last few days will be sorted. I head the other way, hurrying up a flight of steel stairs that lead to the large office of the man in charge of the 4th army. This late at night, I catch Illigar absent of any advisors or petitioners that might delay me.

  Illigar stands in what had once been a meeting room, the fine furniture he brought along with him standing out in the drab room. A large table of well-polished ivory rests in the very center, a myriad of maps and reports scattered about while the original table, a simple square of oak, rests on its side up against a wall. Illigar’s attention snaps up to me for a moment as I enter, his eyes seeming to dissect me in the brief instant he spares me before looking back to his maps.

  “The rings were filled again already?” he asks, making a note in the ledger I have never seen him without. “I have managed to procure three more storage devices. That should give you more time out of the city.”

  “Unproductive time,” I can’t help but answer, closing the door behind me as I step fully into the room. The maps spread out on the table pull my attention, but no matter how hard I focus on the papers, no information sticks in my head. The man must have some ability to obscure writing or something similar.

  “I have thought your time to be quite productive,” he says. “Of all of the armies set to this operation, ours has been the most profitable by far.”

  “I thought we were here to kill the monsters that pose a threat to the people, not to make money.”

  “If there is one thing that you can count on to unite the dedicated individualists that make up the ranks of adventurers, it is greed. In this kind of operation, the most profitable force often is the most victorious as well. Only the Prince’s force has been able to even compare to our own. Everyone else is either splitting their manpower between butchering and fighting or is leaving monster carcasses to rot. Both cases are insufficient.”

  “You are trying to convince me that I have value doing what you ask me to,” I say.

  “I am trying to preempt your mistake,” he says.

  “I don’t like being treated like a resource that can’t be risked,” I tell him. “If this is how I knew you would keep me away from the fight, then I never would have signed that contract with you.”

  “By your own admission in your reports, you have found plenty of time to fight. You have slain more than two hundred monsters by yourself despite my orders for you not to engage with them. What excuse will you give me for veering off course this time, a fallow field needed saving?”

  “A watermill.”

  “Of course.” He stops scribbling for a moment, looking up at me. “You would probably try to fight this beast tide alone if someone wasn’t holding you back.” With a quick movement of his hand, he produces the contract I signed back in Danfalla, passing it across the table to me. “Rip up the contract if it has become such a burden on you.”

  It is tempting, but reason prevails as I slide the contract back to him. “Keep it.”

  “From an old man to a young and promising upstart, take this piece of advice. Never give a threat that you will balk at, it makes you look weak.” With a flash of his hand, the contract disappears once again.

  “You are a member of the Willian Guild,” I say. “Did Dovik tell you why this beast tide is so important to him and me?”

  “The young master did not need to,” Illigar says. “You are one of the aspiring third rankers that the guild has invested in for the Trial of Bone and Soul. No doubt, the guild has you on the hook for an incredible amount of money if you fail to reach the desired rank in time. The trial has been looked forward to by several of the major factions for a good century and a half and it is an affair exclusive to third-rankers. How could I not know about it? Who do you think that it is that will be leading the forces of the Willian Guild?”

  His answer stops me short for a moment. “I am starting to believe that it is not a coincidence you are in the duchy.”

  “There are no such things as coincidences,” he says, looking back to his book and scrawling some notes. “There are merely variables either known or unknown.”

  “That doesn’t exactly sound like something a sage would say.”

  He grimaces. “Any person that would say otherwise has no insight to speak of. Now, have I sufficiently allayed your concerns?”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I will still not be kept from the fight, contract or not.”

  This time when he looks up, he goes so far as to close the journal in front of him. “Despite what you might think, I did not come to this duchy for you, but that does not mean you have escaped my notice. Your progress in the Trial of Rising Tide was displayed to anyone who bothered to watch, not that many did for most of the trial. I witnessed a young girl with more talent than sense stumble her way through, climbing the ladder of the competition by being the one willing to take the most pain.”

  “You think I am talented?”

  “You shouldn’t be so pleased. Talent is often wasted. If it were me, I would take competence every time. Your ability to kill monsters is not the only benefit you can bring to the table. The fact that you seem to disagree only exposes your lack of experience or any proper schooling.”

  “There weren’t exactly adventuring academies where I grew up,” I say, crossing my arms.

  “Does that stop you from finding and attending one now?” Actually, I didn’t know that such things even really existed. It does make a kind of sense that they might. “What I don’t understand is why you feel such urgency that you seem determined to throw yourself against hordes of monsters without any personal regard.”

  “You just told me that you know my situation.”

  “Come now, Ms. Devardem. You are a smart girl, surely you can do the math. From my understanding, you were not even a proper magician six months ago. If you continue at your current pace, you will make it to the third rank well ahead of the appointed time. However, when you make it there, you will likely be the most hollow third-ranker among your peers, and your severe lack of experience in the magical realm will render you an invalid. If you don’t throw away your life fighting against monsters you have no right confronting, that is. Mark my words now, if you treat rank three monsters the same way you do as rank two ones, you will die. The two can not be compared.”

  A beat of silence passes as I chew on his words. It was my understanding that the final levels of the second rank are much harder to achieve, pushing me to see this beast tide as an opportunity to slay potentially hundreds of monsters in a short period. Then, here this man is telling me that I have far more time than I need. I have a hard time figuring out who I should believe.

  “I still won’t be kept from the fighting. You say that I need experience, and that’s true. What better place to find it.”

  Illigar sighs, looking down at his maps. “If you are that determined. In nine days there will be an offensive push toward the main force of the monsters in this region. There will be plenty of monsters to slay at that time. I had already planned to embed you into the support staff, but if that displeases you so greatly, I will attach you to the same unit as your team.”

  His acquiescence catches me off guard. Either he thinks that I will be helpful in this new stage of the operation as a combatant, or he is not lying when he claims how valuable my looting ability was and doesn’t want our relationship to sour. “I would like that. I have only been able to see them a few times in the past weeks.”

  “It is good to have friends.” The matter seemingly over, he opens his journal once more and picks up his pen. “Now, are you going to do the job I assigned you and relay a real report?”

  I spend the next half an hour with the man, describing the states of the battlefields I have visited over the last days and, more importantly, the states of our people. In the last week, three members of the operation have lost their lives. The number might seem small, but considering just how many we are using to fight the countless ranks of monsters, every person killed is a considerable loss.

  “I need to withdraw some of the items that I have deposited with you,” I tell him.

  “Planning on leaving us?”

  “I need the materials to help in crafting new gear. I have found mine to be insufficient.”

  The man makes a show of looking me over; the unimpressed look in his eyes lets me know that he agrees with my assessment. “Kraess has been at work appraising the items you have brought back already. He can help you comb through the materials and retrieve some of what you are owed. You mentioned crafting new gear. Can I assume that you would call yourself an enchanter?”

  “That is a hostile way you ask,” I remark.

  “I can only assume that you will be self-taught in the craft if you believe yourself so. Is that a yes?”

  “I wouldn’t call myself a professional enchanter, I have only made or modified items for myself. Why?”

  “The array to protect the town from monsters has not been functioning as it should. The source of the lake seems to be creating some kind of manafield that is disrupting our attempts at solidifying a proper barrier. As even a novice enchanter, surely you must understand the difficulty of creating even a semi-permanent emplacement with water mana suffusing the atmosphere.”

  For once, I feel like I do understand what someone else is talking about when it comes to magical matters. Even the first book I ever read on enchanting mentioned just how volatile and difficult the water affix is to work with. Some contradiction exists with the nature of water that pushes it to erode the stability of enchantments. One of the more advanced volumes I have skimmed so far mentioned that Kressin enchanters somehow had a way to harness the affix in their enchantments, but it also mentioned that such techniques were closely guarded secrets.

  “It seems that you do. Have you integrated an exotic affix that might solve this issue for us?”

  “That is rather forward, sir.”

  “The issue is pressing. If you don’t wish to answer me, then don’t. I will be changing your orders. For the next week and a half, you are to venture to the battlefields every three days. Push yourself on these days to complete your procurement of material in time to return to the city. A few days of the bodies lying in the sun shouldn’t hurt anything other than the sensibilities of our people.

  “The other two days of the week will be spent assisting Jae Madigast with fixing the issue of the city’s barrier. He is a tall Manakith with a brindle pattern; you will find him on the north side of the city in the morning, drinking at an established called the Shifting Keyhole. He is there for the first few hours of the day and is impossible to miss. Render him whatever assistance you can provide. The rest of the time will be left to you to prepare for the next step of the operation. Do you find these orders amenable?”

  “I do, sir.” The impulse to salute the man comes to me, but as I realize that I have no idea how to do a proper salute for someone from Grim, I content myself with a nod.

  “Good, now leave my office. You are tracking blood all over the floor.”

  The man doesn’t need to tell me twice, and I vacate the office in a hurry. He isn’t wrong, the dried ichor still sticking to me is a sore spot, something I need to fix in a hurry. I find Kraess in the larger room of the warehouse and have him lead me through the stacked and ordered crates set about everywhere. With Illigar lending all of the storage items he can get his hands on to me through Verneaus, the material brought to the warehouse has to be stored the old-fashioned way. The several layers of security in the warehouse are likely to protect these goods as much as the information in the office.

  It is the first time that I have seen any of the items that my disenchanting ability has produced for this operation, as I was unable to even look inside the storage items given to me. I don’t need to take much from the items shown to me, though the choosing does take me almost three hours. In the end, I settle for some bundles of silk that were produced by some of the powerful spider monsters and a few natural treasures bearing exotic affixes. The treasures alone easily push me close to the maximum that I am to be allotted as per my contract. With so much monster meat still sitting in my storage items, I opt to leave all the meat alone. It certainly has nothing to do with not wanting to eat bugs, definitely not.

  With the items procured, I head back to the small apartment in the city that has been supplied to me for whenever I return, needing to clean myself off properly. Tomorrow, I will spend the day trying to help some enchanter I don’t know, but more importantly, I will finally be able to start better equipping myself. The thought of making all of my own equipment has been a tempting fantasy, but sometimes you just have to face facts, buying items from others is just so much easier.

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