I woke up the next morning to find Rabyn, Maud, and John in the kitchen waiting for me. “Morning,” John said as I walked in.

  “What’s up?” I asked, yawning and wiping some sleep from my eyes, covering which likely hid the surprise on my face at their gathering. We only had a couple of hours before we were planning to leave for the Arena. So, this seemed a bit odd, to say the least.

  “I’ve proposed something to John, and he is willing to accept only if you agree to it,” Rabyn replied.

  “Okay, and what is that?” I asked groggily. I had been hoping for breakfast, not a discussion this early.

  “He wants me to come with you all to the Spire today, and while you handle the floor, I somehow form a core in the waiting area,” John said, sounding both excited and worried.

  “Alright, first up. Is that actually possible, Rabyn?” I asked, looking at the Orc.

  “Yes, I can make John my apprentice officially. Pryte could register him with the Spire, and we’ll handle his training, so that way he stays with them in the waiting room. I have a few rarer items in my pantry that’ll speed up his core development time as long as there’s proper mana flow,” Rabyn answered. John shuffled his feet nervously as Rabyn was explaining. The more important question here wasn’t the how they could do it. It was more of a did John want this? Alex had likely been right that with Maud gaining her own core, he would, but I wasn’t about to railroad him down this path.

  “John, this is ultimately your decision. What do you want to do here?” I asked, looking at my son for any signs of pressure and wishing I knew how to actually look for that.

  “Let’s say I go through with it. What does this all entail? Especially since you want me to be your apprentice, am I going to be another war chef?” John asked, looking from me to the orc.

  “This entails whatever you want it to. But yes, I happen to have another war chef class orb that I’ve been sitting on in the off chance I ever found a worthy apprentice, and you, John, are a masterful chef in your own right. Even if partially I consider this a debt I owe to your father, you are entirely worthy of the gift all on your own, and I swear to you that I will do my utmost in your training,” Rabyn said, closing his eyes and lowering his head in a half bow toward us as he finished speaking. So Rabyn considered some of this as a debt owed to me then? That didn’t really matter to me. What mattered was what John wanted.

  “I want to be clear here: I don’t want to do that Arena fighting thing at all, but the idea of honing my cooking further, especially in a way that I help all of you, is extremely appealing. Would I have to do any Arena combat?” John asked, looking back to me from Rabyn.

  “No,” we both said at the same time. I was glad for the agreement.

  “Okay, then I agree. What do we need to do?” John asked, his worry turning into a smile. Was that really the only hesitation he had had? Not wanting to fight?

  “Where you start is that you should have brought this up with me first. But, that said, I’m not against it,” Pryte said, appearing from around the corner. He seemed to have a habit of managing to show up in the middle of important conversations.

  “Apologies, you’re correct. I should have respected the proper order here,” Rabyn said, looking surprisingly guilty.

  “It’s fine. This is actually another unexpectedly good development, I think. Alright, I’m going to take you two to the Spire right now and get this apprenticeship part settled. Then, I’ll leave you both in the waiting room while we get the rest of the squad. You’re going to need to work quickly to make sure John has the time needed to form his core. We won’t be able to just wait around for long afterward. This is already a bit of a loophole as it is,” Pryte said.

  “Thank you. I believe with two of the items I’ve got, he should be able to accomplish it in time we’ll have,” Rabyn replied.

  “Okay, then let’s go. I’ll be back in as soon as this is done, so get something to eat and be ready,” Pryte said before walking back out of the kitchen, followed by Rabyn and John, who shrugged at us as he left.

  “How are you feeling about this?” I asked Maud once we were alone.

  “Pretty stoked. Can you imagine how good his food is going to be now? I mean, he’s already the best cook I’ve ever met, and now he’s going to be a magical chef!” Maud said with her usual excitement.

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  “Glad to hear it. And speaking of cooking, with those two gone, I think that means we’re on breakfast duty. How are you at scrambled eggs?” I asked

  “Well, I’ve never started a fire with them. Soup, though, that’s dangerous,” Maud said as she grabbed a pan. We spent the rest of the morning managing to put together a half-decent meal and explaining to Mel the slight change in plans. He was reasonably receptive to them, with only a little yelling. By the time everyone had cycled through breakfast, Pryte had returned ready with our ride back to the Arena.

  “Everything went fine with John. Left him in the waiting room with Rabyn,” Pryte whispered to me as we left the house.

  “Glad to hear it. so no new problems?” I asked.

  “Nothing yet, and honestly, we have enough as it is,” Pryte replied as we stopped in front of the porter, vanishing from my front yard and reappearing in the waiting room a few seconds later. I spotted John sitting by a wall, glowing oddly. Rabyn was next to him, quietly whispering.

  “I assume the glow is on purpose?” I asked, concern evident in my voice.

  “Yes, the food Rabyn gave him is causing his body to absorb the mana flow at an extremely heightened pace. He’s going to be pretty exhausted after this, but I suspect he’s also going to form a pretty strong core. Just so you know, whatever Rabyn gave him for this is so rare I didn’t even know it existed. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is his own creation,” Pryte explained.

  “Oh,” I said, wondering why Rabyn was willing to go so far.

  “Yeah,” Pryte replied knowingly before Mel’s voice spoke up.

  “Alright, this is the last one before the big one. I want y’all ta remember everything ya learned in the practices. Get yer asses in there and win!” he called out.

  “Hello again. Glad to see you’re all still with us. Please follow me,” Floor Master said, appearing from a side door. Rabyn immediately left his seat to join us at his appearance, and as a group, we followed the spider into the black hallway yet again.

  “John is progressing well. I believe he will be done before we finish,” Rabyn said as Floor Master closed the door behind us. I nodded back approvingly. Seconds later, the black hall had been replaced with a dimly lit cavern filled with shrieking noises coming from all around us.

  “Your objective is to keep at least half of the villagers alive for the next two hours,” an unseen voice loudly announced. While I couldn’t see any of the said villagers, I assumed that was where the screaming was coming from.

  “Glorp, scout the area ahead. The rest of us can stick together for now. Let’s head toward the screams,” Elicec said.

  “Got it,” Glorp replied taking off in a burst of speed toward the clamor.

  “Dave, can you send your mallet to scout as well? It looks like we’ll need to circle down this path, and I assume none of us have reliable access to any mass flight yet,” Elicec asked. We didn’t, at least, that I knew of.

  “Yeah, one second,” I said, pulling up my chat window as Rabyn started passing around some sort of jerky.

  I closed the chat window, releasing them all from my storage as I did so, watching the mallet fly downward into a darkened abyss. The rest of us began our slow descent. The food Rabyn had supplied once again seemed to increase our speed, and the effect was further multiplied by Connie’s singing, but it was still slow going as we picked our way down narrow paths and crumbling footfalls.

  “There are several large beasts attacking a village of small humanoids far below. At our current rate, we will not get there before more than half of them have perished. Unless you wish otherwise, I am ordering Alpha and Glorp to start the battle without us,” Corey said in a new chat window. I relayed the message to the group.

  “Damn, yeah, do that. If anyone else has a quicker way down there, now is the time to use it. Despite what we just went through, it seems we already need to split the party,” Elicec said.

  “I can join them,” Elody replied, pulling a mana orb from her core and putting a new one in. She doubled over in obvious pain as she did this.

  “Uh, you okay?” I asked, having no idea what she had just done.

  “Yes, just give me a moment. The wings are painful to regrow, but I’ll be fine. Go on ahead, and I’ll meet you down there as soon as they’re in place,” she said. Did she have a mana orb with some sort of flight power? Wait, was it just a mutation? I’d ask later as the Elicec had ushered us on ahead. The panicked screams were growing louder below.

  Some sounds produce melodies in ways no one could ever predict. There are two universes in the spiral that have begun to merge into a singular existence, and as they do so, the explosion of energies as whole planets merge with each other has created one of the most amazing and unique pieces of music I have ever heard. I worry no one will ever be able to do the piece justice.

  A History of Music in the Spiral by Emwood Greens

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