“Probably not. We aren’t even sure if you can level yet, and level one isn’t a great place to start the Arena at,” I answered, not wanting to dash Maud’s hopes, but that request just didn’t seem realistic, let alone safe.

  “Actually, our squad still is missing members, if Pryte can get her added on before we go, the potential for power leveling her and greatly benefiting our future performance is there,” Rabyn replied, countering my answer.

  “What if she gets hurt, though? We can’t easily protect her through a whole level, and then she’s just wounded or worse,” I asked, pointing out my thoughts on the matter.

  “Barring something like the Jesters, and I highly doubt they can throw that at us again. She can’t be really killed or even wounded that badly on the next two floors, Dave,” Rabyn answered. He was right. I had forgotten that part. I wasn’t sure if she’d earn any experience if she didn’t finish the floor, but there was no real risk in trying, was there?

  “Oh yeah, sorry, my brain isn’t doing so great this morning. It is morning, right?” I asked, looking toward the window, realizing I had no idea what time I had actually woken up at.

  “It’s not, it’s late afternoon,” Glorp answered.

  “Owwwwww,” Timon moaned loudly from the ground. “Remind me never to listen to Elody again. My head almost feels like my first marriage over here.”

  “Hopefully that means Mel is about to join us in the world of the living,” Rabyn replied with zero concern for Timon’s pain evident in his voice. Honestly, I wasn’t that far off. How much of it was even real versus the usual show?

  “I’ve been awake fer the last hour, just didn’t wanna move yet, but some ass had to go and kick me,” Mel replied, as he slowly floated off the ground, hanging just slightly off-kilter as he reached the center of the room.

  “Stay still,” Cecile said as he started working on both of the newly awakened men. Neither sounded happy about their situation, but after a few minutes of tending to by the new paladin, both of them were complaining much less.

  “So, just how bad is the situation?” Mel asked, his floating a bit more normalized than before.

  “Depends, everyone is alive, and we have a new channeler,” Rabyn started to say.

  Maud interrupted to announce her news with another happy shout. “It’s me!”

  “Yes, that. The real question, though, is how Dave is doing. He hasn’t been using his orbs in the ways he used to, and I am growing concerned,” Rabyn finished, staring intently at me. Damn, so he had noticed already. He was perceptive.

  “Yeah, about that… Well, those nice special switches I built into my system to make it so I could actually channel without killing myself. Thanks to the soul ignition, I now have a bunch of new channels alongside them with zero switches. I have no way to currently control that flow,” I said, feeling the pressure on my chest increase sharply.

  “Oh,” was all Mel said in response. It was a very loud silence as people looked between Mel and Elody for answers.

  “Yes, well, you’re all incredibly lucky that I spent most of the time Dave was unconscious, reading about soul mana and the implications of soul ignitions,” Elody said in response to the stares.

  “Is there something I can do then?” I asked, looking at her hopefully.

  “Maybe. The problem is of course, that your core and the mana sockets attached to it are entirely unique as far as we know. The closest thing to it in existence, we accidentally created in Maud here. But, I believe if you start training the channels, you will be able to work on contracting them to overlay the positions of your other existing ones. It is possible the gates you use for controlling your flows may begin to handle the new channels as well. I am not sure how fast or how accurate they will be, though,” she explained. It was better than what I currently had going, at least. Could Corey help there?

  “On the next floor, do we get to pick our layout of who goes with who if we have more than the minimum number of people?” I asked, debating what to do about that upcoming floor, considering my new problem and our lack of time.

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  “Yes, technically speaking, anyone can choose any path. It’s just there are six paths that ya need ta get through. Why?” Mel asked, focusing intently on me. Was he trying to scan me again?

  “I think that means Maud is in and coming with me. Between the two of us, we might make a single functional channeler by the time we have to do this,” I said. It was the best idea I could think of, given the situation.

  “Yes!” Maud yelled in the middle of literally jumping for joy. I hadn’t ever seen anyone actually do that before, and until this moment thought it was just a turn of phrase.

  “As terrible of an idea as it is, I ain’t sure we really got another one. Well, the good news is I mostly managed to sort all the orbs while y’all were fighting the orcs and got the last batch done while Dave was still unconscious. We should have a good selection for Maud and Glorp to find a class. I got a feeling she counts as another member of Sanquar’s faction,” Mel said, seemingly resigning himself to my idea.

  “Where is Sanquar anyway? I haven’t seen him either of the times I woke up,” I asked, looking around to make sure I hadn’t just somehow missed a large bird in the room.

  “He’s in the bus, one of the mana orbs we found was a rejuvenation orb. He’s hoping it might help his core, but so far, every time I’ve checked on him, there hasn’t been a change,” Cecile answered glumly, reminding me we needed to figure out exactly how badly Sanquar’s core was broken and if there was any way we could help.

  “I’ll talk to him. Should have something for my pounding head out there anyway,” Timon said, most of his usual humor gone as he left the house.

  “Woah, I don’t feel so good,” Maud said, reaching out for John as she swayed on her feet.

  “Yes, I imagine both you and Dave need a lot more rest. I think we’ve discussed enough for today. Most of us need to spend the day recovering more anyway. We can resume this talk tomorrow once Pryte is back,” Elody said.

  “Good thinking,” Mel replied, his color shifting as his floating yet again drooped.

  “Alright, you heard the lady. Glorp, Cecile, and Elicec help Mel and Rabyn back to the bus. Dad, you stay where you are. Alex has taken up residence in your office for now. I’m taking Maud back to bed. Elody, I assume you will find your own resting place again,” John said gently but firmly, his voice making it clear he wasn’t taking questions on his orders.

  “I will thank you,” she said as she forced herself to her feet. The exhaustion Maud had felt suddenly hit me as well. While I could feel my energy building slowly, it apparently hadn’t been enough to sustain me for long, either.

  “Yeah, what Maud felt just hit me too; back to sleep, I go,” I said, managing to get the words out before sleep rapidly overcame me again.

  “Boom,” a loud noise woke me up as I opened my eyes to the feeling of light shining onto my face. While as far as my perception was concerned no time at all had passed, but I could tell from my mana pool and the dulling of pain throughout my body that I had managed to sleep through the night. A loud hammering sound brought me further out of my morning haze as I realized that was what had actually awoken me in the first place. It was coming from somewhere outside.

  Getting off the couch, for what felt like the first time in days, which I realized was likely actual reality, I decided it best not to question how that had worked with certain bathroom needs, hoping it was just something magic-related. I opened the door and made my way outside in search of the hammering. I found Pryte, Glorp, several smaller versions of Glorp, and a man twice my size hammering away at a wall that hadn’t been there the last time I was outside.

  “I’m guessing the kids mean you have good news, Pryte?” I called from across my front yard.

  “Yes, I’ll fill you in on the details later, but suffice it to say for now that we have what we needed from my trip. I even found Trolke at a decent price, and that was mostly thanks to your well-timed alliance-making in the Arena,” Pryte answered. That explained the size of the man. Was he from the exact same faction? I supposed those details weren’t overly important now. I could discuss that with Pryte later.

  “What are we building first?” I asked, looking at the start of the structure.

  “A bunk house. We will spread it out to actual rooms eventually, but for now we just desperately need more places for people to sleep. The bus is likely to be incredibly cramped tonight unless Trolke can get this livable in a day,” Pryte answered.

  “It’s going to take a couple of days to get it done right. I need to plan out the future extensions to make sure this goes easy enough. At least the ground is solid. That saves some work. There’s also the question of the plumbing. How cold does it get here?” Trolke asked in an incredibly deep voice.

  “Extremely,” I said, not entirely sure what his definition of extreme cold might be.

  “Hmm, I’ll examine how the current house is set up then and mirror some of that in the plans. But yes, I think I can have us all somewhere to bunk out in within a week. We will just have to make do with what space is available for now,” he replied, smiling as he resumed swinging the hammer.

  Debating whether or not someone has the right to exist is a futile gesture. At no point in the history of the known Spiral has any group ever gained their rights through rational debate. Your time would be much better served punching the other person who is daring to argue against the cause of equality in the face rather than wasting a single extra iota of energy entertaining their arguments. Never let someone convince you a black eye isn’t an effective debate technique.

  Why I Learned to Box by Glorinious Jole

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