“I can tell you’re serious, because you’ve taken your gloves off.” Daniel observed. “You only strip off your gloves when you’re serious.” He agreed to Athos. “So, that’s it?” He asked. “No more Sage? Or are we going back to Irthaz so that you can select another from the Ashen Tower to play the role of Sage?” he asked casually.

  “You don’t understand, Daniel. You’re being removed.” Sellini insisted.

  “We’re going on without you.” Athos replied. “Everything you’ve done for us- The support, the buffs, the gear you’ve helped us gather- all of it is documented. Your retirement is set. Go back to Irthaz. Become a teacher or something. I don't care. You’re just not a good fit for the Hero Party.”

  Allessandra pressed her lips together, but turned to Athos and Sellini. “Is this really necessary? His magic is important to the cause- as well as the party’s success.”

  Athos flapped his hand dismissively. “He doesn’t understand-” Athos began, but then he shook his head. “No, he doesn’t even pretend to want to understand-”

  Daniel started pulling out canvases from his magic bag. He went around the room, setting them against easels he conjured with a wave of his hand and arranged them in a rough circle.

  “What am I supposed to understand?” He asked as he worked. “The best and brightest of those known the world over have to be seen rescuing kittens from trees and villagers from rashes?” He gave Athos an impatient look. “Eccentric I might me. Rational, I am. I agreed- against my master’s wishes, mind you- to join the Hero Party under the auspices of defeating the Demon Lord, an actual, existential threat to all life as we know it.”

  He shot Athos a furious look as he conjured a magical formula at his feet. “So when I am told that the Hero Party is some great publicity campaign and not about defeating the Demon Lord, yes, I am disappointed. I am disappointed in the Ten Great Nations, I am disappointed in the Holy Church. Worst of all, I am disappointed in myself, to go along with such a whimsical farce.”

  Sellini stepped forward. “We will stand against the Demon Lord, Daniel. Just... when the time is right. And that time will never come unless we’re seen righting the wrongs, cleansing the taint, showing the reputation of the Hero’s Party, showing that the decisions of the Ten Great Nations and the Holy Church are working in everyone’s best interests! Everyone’s hopes, everyone’s dreams, everyone’s desires to see rightness triumph over great evil is the true weapon that will overcome the Demon Lord!”

  Daniel pulled a wand out of nowhere, and a soft note of Starsong resonated in the air as one of the easels lit up.

  He moved in a subtle dance, pointing at seemingly random easels, the music building.

  After they had all been set alight, he stepped out of the circle.

  “One last lunch, then. As equals. As party members.” He offered. He tucked his wand into his sleeve, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the canvases flickering with magic and throbbing with incomprehensible beats and tones.

  “That will see to itself.”

  Allessandra eyed it dubiously. “What is it?” She asked.

  “Magic.” He replied, as if nobody knew what magic was. “It’ll give us celebratory fireworks at the end of lunch.”

  She tilted her head. “Fireworks?” She asked quietly.

  He nodded. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to buy you dinner, Alessandra.”

  She blushed awkwardly.

  “Fine.” Athos replied reluctantly. “Lunch. But we go our respective ways, afterwards.”

  Behind them, the sound of the Song of the stars built slowly, like a subtle intro to a concert.

  *****

  At the table on the bottom floor of the inn, an awkward lunch was being had by all.

  Well, except for Daniel, who was uncharacteristically cheerful.

  “So, are all of your family martial artists?” He asked Kanon curiously.

  “No.” She replied, and seeing that no one else was talking, added, “It is passed generationally, but not everyone in the family is expected to take up the craft.” She offered. “My brother, for instance, will likely inherit the dojo. My sisters never had any interest.”

  He nodded. “If you were to learn a technique, a skill, that exceeds his ability that could be included in the Haruna style of martial arts, would you open a separate dojo, or pass it along to your brother?” He asked curiously.

  She frowned. “I would pass it on to my brother, of course. It isn’t enough that we pass our teachings from one generation to the next, but also that we add new teachings to our repertoire.”

  He nodded.

  “And you?” She asked suddenly. “Is the Ash Magic passed down generationally?”

  Daniel blinked; she’d never shown any interest in magic before.

  “Of course not.” He replied. “We’re all captivated by our own madnesses.” He added with a grin. “To infect someone else with our insanities is... well, madness.” He finished lamely, but then immediately contradicted himself.

  “We have our techniques for harnessing the Silverine mana- it’s what changes us- gives us our hair and eyes, and our propensity for... eccentricity- but our Path to the Constellations is a personal one. In the end, we all arrive at the Altar of the Stars together. My vices are poetry and hallucinogens; for me to insist that someone else walk my path involuntarily would be madness.” He chuckled.

  “I... see.” She offered politely.

  Daniel blinked a few times in sudden surprise, and a double handful of amulets clattered onto his plate with a rattle.

  “Oh.” He muttered, as he picked one up in his fingers. He turned them over with the tips of his fingers, and then looked across the table to an awkwardly silent Saintess.

  “Saintess Sellini, I have to apologize; Xan go Boa is not a kind or temperate summon, and so... the amulets you made for me were damaged.” He offered a lame smile to her as he held out the damaged amulet to her.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She took it from him and stared at it. “It is certainly damaged.” She agreed. “I will dispose of them.”

  He nodded and passed them over.

  “What’s ‘silverine’?” Alessandra asked.

  “Ahhh~.” Daniel offered. “The Mages all believe that there are many types of mana in the world, and the Ash Tower gives them colors.” He paused, with a glance at the elf in the party, and added. “So does Indrigal. He is a user of Green, and frustratingly, he won’t teach me any of it.”

  Indrigal said nothing, his taciturn nature refusing to contribute. Also, he was an elf, and preferred to keep himself apart from humans.

  “The only two mana that the Ashen cannot understand is Holy Power and... whatever it is that Kanon there does.” He gave her a frustrated look. “It has to be some sort of mana.”

  Kanon wordlessly gestured at the table and a roasted chicken leg pulled itself free from the bird and floated to her plate. She gave him an enigmatic smile.

  “Those of the Silverine can learn how to use all the colors, thus only we can truly be called Sages, since we are the only ones that can call upon all the Colors-”

  “When are you leaving?” Athos broke in harshly. He’d been solid and unmovable and had said nothing at lunchtime.

  The conversation, awkward as it was, stopped there.

  “When the fireworks sound in the sky my work will be complete.” Daniel replied quietly. “A parting gift.”

  “We don’t need your fireworks.” Athos replied.

  Daniel sighed. “The fireworks are not the gift. The fireworks are the signal that the gift is completed.” He replied with an ostentatious eyeroll.

  Alessandra reached over and picked up her wineglass. She was not used to what she considered ‘sumptuous food’, having been raised in the Churches Holy Garrison from a young age. She approached everything she ate that wasn’t rations with a mixture of curiosity and caution, a trait that endeared Daniel to her.

  “What ‘gift’ is that?” She asked.

  “The destruction of the Demon Lord and his generals, of course.” Daniel replied casually.

  Athos, Sellini, and Alessandra shot to their feet while the others stared at Daniel in shock.

  Daniel took their reactions as hilarious and giggled helplessly. “It’s a formula I’ve been working on ever since we left the capital. It’s a resonance with ‘miasma’, which is really just applications of ‘violet’ and ‘black’ Colors.” He looked towards the three standing emissaries of the Holy Church. “Surely you didn’t think all my questions were just for curiosity’s sake?”

  “Arrest him.” Athos demanded harshly.

  *****

  As Athos and Sellini raced upstairs to Daniel’s room, the air above the town split with a peal of explosions. Shattering starbursts of color erupted over the sky as they kicked over easels, too little, too late. Daniel giggled as they ransacked his room, his wrists bound in rope.

  They couldn’t undo what had already been done; a blooming bud of magic had been planted, had fed on a variety of different magics as it grew, and once it was self-sustaining Daniel had released it to its own devices.

  The flower had grown, pulsing with the Song of the Stars. Each petal was a thing woven of every shade of every Color of mana, had stretched itself across the sky, devouring and ingesting ‘miasma’.

  The more it grew, the more ‘miasma’ it ingested, until it finally reached the land of demons, a land that reeked with miasma. The spell, so much like a plant, sent creeper vines into the heaviest and thickest sources of miasma, had dug its roots in deep-

  And then, in a flash, had transformed and converted the miasma into Holy Power.

  The conversion was not kind, like the Blessing of Sinhilde. The conversion was done by a human with a layman’s understanding of conversion after studying an Amulet of Protection. The violet and black mana was excited and converted into the earthen magics of the dwarven constellation of the Forge; from there it was transformed into the dreadful Flames of the Forge, and from there into reverberations of the Harpist’s sonics, and then, in turn, converted into the runic thunderstorms of the Nords as it surged higher, and higher still up the Mana Prism.

  The effect was catastrophic.

  The ground erupted, blossoms of flame, peals of thunder escalating higher, and higher still until the Demon Lord’s territories had been blasted, shaken free of every particle of miasma, leaving a land where nothing remained but swirls of dust and ash.

  As the demon territories were scorched by superheated plasma and rendered completely inhospitable, Daniel suddenly understood something crucial, something critical, something he hadn’t understood when he began.

  The realization stripped away his reason, and his tenuous connection to sanity, such as it was, and so his soul slipped away from his body with a painless tug, like the removal of a tooth from a socket.

  His mindless body was brought before a tribunal, and charges read out; his body did not have the capacity to rebut or reject, it merely drooled helplessly as it was led to the executioner’s block. His head was separated from his body, and a trembling humanity looked forward to a future where the Demon Lord was forever absent, and a strange patch of ground that had been melted down to the bedrock.

  *****

  If it’s possible, I wish to undo my destiny! His soul shouted to the Constellations at the Altar of the Stars. I have committed a great wrong, and it needs to be undone!

  -The Song of the Stars cannot be rewound.- The Harp spoke, its strings humming musically.

  -The Thread of Destiny cannot be rewoven.- The Loom decreed, the threads trembling in its tapestry.

  -The nail, once pounded, cannot be moved- the Hammer agreed.

  I reject this idea! Daniel screamed. I deny it! A note can be changed, so that it harmonizes with the others! A different pattern can be woven anew! Nails are replaced all the time!

  A cosmic silence settled amongst the Constellations.

  After a limitless time, a heartbeat or an eternity, one of the Constellations spoke up drily. “We are listening, child.”

  I have an idea. Daniel suggested. A small change. A miniscule change. With luck, it will make all the difference in the world, without condemning me to destroying the world.”

  He offered his proposal.

  They accepted.

  He fell asleep, buoyed aloft by Fate.

  *****

  The young apprentice girl lay sprawled on the ground, the psychedelics coursing through her system as her mind roamed in far and distant places.

  Her Master, an old man with silver hair, watched as her dark hair suddenly shifted from black to silver, from roots to tips.

  “The Silverine has chosen for itself another Ashen.” He mused, looking with eyes filled with wonder at the speed of her transformation.

  For most, it took months. For others, it took weeks. For a complete transformation like this, for it to take heartbeats- it was an omen, surely. An omen that perhaps the strongest Sage was about to be born.

  He chuckled to himself, pulled out a notebook from his belt, and scribbled in it.

  “That sounded profound.” He decided as he wrote it into his notebook. “Whenever you’re ready, disciple Raniel, open your eyes into a new world of possibilities.”

  The reborn sage Daniel opened his no, her eyes. He- no, she held up a hand in front of her face and examined it curiously.

  “I understand so much more, now.” She whispered. By her reckoning, by the memories of the Silverine Sage Daniel within her, in roughly five years the Ten Great Nations and the Holy Church would call for the assembly of the Hero’s Party.