Ember of Invention

Lindle and Thalia dashed through the snow-covered street towards the hunter lodges near the edge of Glacerhine. Looking up Lindle saw one of the Reach’s frequent snowstorms raging outside the protection of the grove. Most of the snow was kept out by the grove, but enough flakes always got through to leave a layer of snow across the ground and over everyone’s homes. He saw some people casting [Banish Water] to clear out places where it had grown inconvenient.

Almost half the day was already gone after all the experimenting he and his mom did on his items, so Lindle and Thalia decided to use [Trek] and race their way to Humphrey’s house as quickly as possible. The Technique was optimized for use in the snow, but lots of Glacians used it to sprint their way from one side of the village to the other without exhausting themselves when they had the Aura to burn, so they weren’t an uncommon sight.

Lindle hadn’t properly appreciated it before between all the other things he had to test and play with from his new class, but the increases to his physical stats felt amazing. He felt like his body could do anything as he drew on them to run faster. He was in wonder at the difference just two levels in a crafting class made him feel, no wonder wayfarers wanted to level up as much as possible. Though of course, Lindle supposed he couldn’t count on gaining an increase as large as his first level at once for a while without the level 1 bonus.

Before he knew it, they had slowed to a stop in front of one of the lodges where Humphrey lived. Lindle hadn’t been to his house very often, so he hesitated a moment in front in front of the door before Thalia took the opportunity to promptly knock on the ice.

A few seconds passed before an older-looking beastman with antlers and a short beard answered. He scanned their faces for a quick second before smiling. “Hello Lindle, Thalia, you’re here for Humphrey yes?”

“Hello, yeah we are Mr. Anterom,” Thalia answered.

Humphrey’s dad nodded and called into the house. “Humphrey!” He looked back at Lindle. “Happy birthday Lindle, congratulations.”

“Thanks Mr. Anterom.”

The beastman walked back inside as his son came into view. Humphrey rushed outside and shut the door behind him.

“Lindle! Happy birthday! I was at your house earlier looking for you but the store was closed and no one answered the door.”

Lindle winced. “Yeah sorry, ever since I got my class my mom and I got really distracted testing out what I got from my class. Thalia had to go inside to get us before we realized we never opened the store.”

Humphrey laughed, turning to Thalia. “That’s amazing, what did you find them doing?”

Thalia laughed too. “I found an entire tree growing in their living room.”

Humphrey laughed again, but he paused after a moment and raised an eyebrow at Lindle. “A tree? That’s funny, but what does that have to do with alchemy?”

Lindle started to answer. “Yeah about that, my class-” He stopped when Thalia cut him off by waving her hand past his face.

“You don’t have to say it here, come on, I got a good place.” She turned around and started jogging away.

Lindle and Humphrey exchanged glances, as Humphrey looked at him in confusion and Lindle just shrugged before they ran after her.

Both Lindle and Humphrey followed Thalia as she led them into the center of the village, the deeper they went the more greenery began to sprout up between the frozen buildings and paths until eventually, in the dead center of the village they came to a thick treeline, unlike the woods outside of Glacerhine, these trees and the ground around them were completely free of snow.

They stopped as Lindle and Humphrey looked hesitantly into the True Grove, stopping outside the edge as Thalia strode inside. Usually, only members of the circle went into the True Groves that generated the protective aura that sheltered Glacerhine. She looked back at them.

“Thalia?” Lindle called. “Why are we going there?”

She shrugged. “It’s private, isn’t it? We can have fun here too, you know, to celebrate. I really wanna show you guys this place.”

Humphrey looked a bit nervous, eyeing the trees. “I know you’re a member now, but are we allowed in?”

“It’s fine as long as you’re with me, come on, don’t be shy.” She teased the two of them.

They both warily stepped into the True Grove as Thalia waited. When nothing happened, they both sighed in relief. The True Grove wouldn’t be hostile to them like it would to actual outsiders, but it would keep out people it didn’t want around, so it seemed like they were okay to enter.

As they walked, out of curiosity Lindle activated his Ethos sense. He immediately shut it off as he was almost instantly overwhelmed on all sides by the most powerful Ethos he had ever encountered. The entire Grove was flush with immensely powerful Ethos. He didn’t even get an opportunity to grasp the aspects present.

Lindle stopped walking and kneeled over as he held his head. “Ah! Ow, crap.”

His friends looked at him in concern. “Something wrong?” Thalia asked.

“I’m fine, just used that sensing feat, got a headache from the Grove.” He responded, waving off their concern.

Humphrey looked confused again. “Sensing feat? I’m still missing context, are you going to tell me what you were going to say about your class now?”

“In a minute,” Thalia said, pointing forward. “We’re almost there.”

Lindle took a few seconds to shake off the headache, feeling his increased Resilience stat push away the pain quickly. Once he was ready, they continued walking until they came to a clearing of the trees.

A picturesque glade lay before them, filled with colorful flowers of all shades surrounding the group and the chirping of birds filling the air as they fluttered from tree to tree. Looking around Lindle could see small, furry creatures scampering about, seemingly unbothered by their presence. Thalia walked into the glade and sat in the grass, a rabbit hopping up to her curiously, and looking up at Humphrey and Lindle as they followed her with an innocent expression, before calmly hopping away.

Lindle took a second to take it all in, it was hard to believe someplace this beautiful had been this close. “Wow, this is really nice.”

“You’re welcome,” Thalia said happily as the two of them sat down with her, staying quiet to appreciate their surroundings for a minute before Humphrey broke the silence.

“So… I think this is pretty private, are you going to fill me in now? Did something go wrong with your class?”

“No nothing like that,” Lindle answered, trying to figure out where to start. “Well, so I didn’t get an Alchemist class, my class is called Artificer.”

Humphrey opened his mouth to start asking questions before Thalia hushed him. “It’ll go faster if you just let him go on until he’s done.”

Lindle nodded before he continued. He was happy now that he got some practice running through the relevant parts with Thalia earlier. He didn’t bother going into the technicalities of Ethos and [Artifice Crafting], just showing Humphrey one of his rings and sharing the basics of how his new class worked.

Humphrey looked over the Petalshade Ring in his hand, slipping it on and off his finger. “This is pretty cool. Why so hush-hush about it?”

Lindle sighed, this was the part he wasn’t looking forward to sharing with Humphrey. “The raid coming up is why. I don’t want word of my class getting back to Soarstrum.”

Humphrey looked up from the ring and frowned.

Lindle sighed again. He told him what the adventurers Humphrey had met at the party for his Milestone rite had told him about artifacts, and the negative kind of attention a class potentially connected to them could bring from certain people in Soarstrum. When Humphrey questioned why some Soarian adventurers knew in the first place, Lindle told Humphrey the entire story of going into the dungeon. As Lindle talked, he could see Humphrey slowly connect the dots as he described what they had found.

“Wait. So you’re why we’re getting a ton of Soarians flooding into the village!” The beastman accused heatedly as he stood up. “You have any idea what kind of trouble they’re going to cause with so many of them running around?”

Lindle could see the irritation on his friend's face. Humphrey’s sentiment wasn’t entirely an uncommon one, plenty of people didn’t like how Soarstrum had set a foothold in Glacerhine in the past few decades. Between the missionaries and the school, many didn’t enjoy the idea of their culture being eroded or changed.

It didn’t help that as many adventurers like Rosato’s group existed that took quests in good faith, there were many that took the remoteness of Glacerhine to act in very distasteful ways and threw the weight of their combat classes around, some of which Humphrey had bad experiences with personally. it was only due to the functional benefits Soarstrum brought through trade, new magic, and unique classes, that the elders allowed them to integrate as much as they had. Survival in the Glacial Reach was difficult enough without turning away help, even if a lot of people thought that help could be a bit obnoxious about it.

At the very least, Lindle could see that his anger wasn’t personal, Lindle was just receiving Humphrey’s annoyance now that he he presented a target to direct it to.

“It’s not really my fault, they would have discovered at least part of the stuff we found down there without me.” He could see Humphrey was about to go into a rant, so Lindle interrupted him. “Besides! If it’s my fault, then it’s also your fault!”

Humphrey stopped, narrowing his eyes at Lindle. “How is it my fault?”

“You’re the one who made me a map to lead them there, remember?”

Humphrey’s mouth snapped shut as he remembered handing Lindle that map that morning before he left. “That’s not the same! You would have been able to get there even if I didn’t…” He trailed off as Lindle crossed his arms, letting Humphrey step into the trap he set.

Humphrey tried to find another argument for a few seconds, but neither of them was a very skilled debater, so eventually, he just crossed his arms too. “…Shut up.” Humphrey sat back down and sulked.

Thalia laughed at the two of them as they crossed their arms at each other for the next minute.