Chapter 363: Old Friends

“Artemis! I missed you!” I broke my hug, looking up at her ever-present grin.

“You missed me? Elaine, how many times have I told you to work on your aim?”

I rolled my eyes and punched her arm.

“Where’s Julius?” I asked, frowning.

I got tapped on my shoulder.

“Right here. Some of us don’t make a huge spectacle – oooof.” Julius was interrupted as I tackle-hugged him around his waist, not caring about decorum or anything.

“You’re alive!”

Julius patted my back.

“A dozen rounds as a Ranger, and you’re still surprised I’m good at keeping my head attached to my shoulders.” He laughed as I broke the hug.

“Oh, it wasn’t the monsters I was concerned about.” I told him with a straight face. “It was extended proximity to Artemis that had me concerned for your life.”

I ducked the predictable swat from Artemis, dancing back as I stuck my tongue out at her.

“Can’t touch this~” I teased her.

“Oh really?” Artemis’s eyes gleamed dangerously.

“Brrrrpt!” Auri saved… someone… by taking that moment to land on my shoulder. “BRRPT!”

“Auri! It’s been ages! How are you?” Julius expertly diffused and redirected the situation.

“Really? You sure?” I asked the bird.

“Brpt bbbrrrrpt. Brpt brrrpppt brppppt.” Auri confirmed.

“Auri wants to close up shop.” I translated for Julius and Artemis. “She figures that hanging out at the School will be more comfortable, and I agree.”

The couple glanced at each other.

“Sure, why not.” Julius agreed. “Let’s find Amber and head over.”

“Amber’s here!?” I shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

Artemis viciously ambushed me from behind, managing to swat my hat off as she cuffed my head.

“Because you haven’t given us more than three seconds to say hello! Honestly, Sentinels these days.” She teased me.

Knowing when I’d lost the verbal sparring, I picked Auri up with one hand.

“Ready?” I asked my little bird.

“Brrrpt!” She nodded, ready for the stunt.

I flipped the bird at Artemis.

We met up with Amber – her one good eye was now faceted instead of starry, and I recognized the Gemstone element – and made our way at maximum hobble speed back to my dorm.

“Auri, how did you manage to take payments from so many people at once?” Our – well, Amber wasn’t a little girl anymore, she was a fully grown woman at this point – resident merchant interrogated Auri, eye blazing purple with swirling mists.

“Bbrpt?”

I stopped and stared at Auri.

“No. No way!” I protested.

“Brrrpt!”

“Compliments don’t buy ingredients!”

“Brrrpt?”

“Not even really good ones.” I cried out in despair.

Amber patted my back.

“There there… now you know how I felt most of the time watching you work.”

I gave her a foul look, then cracked out into an evil grin.

“Oh no. I don’t like that look.” Amber backed up from me.

“I love it.” Artemis said. “Just need Julius to feed me a few grapes, and it’s the perfect entertainment for the evening.”

“Of course you would. If it’s not chaos and mayhem, you’re not happy.” Julius said.

I looked back and forth between the two, momentarily distracted.

“How did you two end up shacking up anyways?”

I caught movement in the corner of my eye, and I glanced over to see Amber trying to make good time away from me.

“Oooh, no you don’t.” I easily caught back up to her. Something about having a few hundred levels, a speed advantage, and a lack of a limp did wonders.

“What did I do?” Amber protested.

“Absolutely nothing! However, if I remember correctly, you’re still my apprentice, right?”

Amber froze for a moment, then nodded. I recognized the look she was shooting me. Desperate, frantic. For some reason.

“Right! I’d be neglecting my duties as your master if I didn’t ensure you had the best education and knowledge possible.”

Amber eyed me, her fears melting away.

“You’re not going to insist I join the School, are you?”

I shook my head.

“No. Just some light reading.”

“Why do I sense this light reading is a dozen books?”

“Just sixteen! For the first set. Then there’s a couple… dozen… no, wait, a couple of dozen… more books for you.”

“Each one dense enough for a smith to use as an anvil?”

I gave Amber an exaggerated wink. “You got it! On a more serious note, I’m looking to acquire some bamboo scrolls, and charcoal. They’re not easy to find, since who would use them when there’s better stuff around? But I’m sure you can find it… and I’ll even let you get a modest profit!” Money was how to motivate Amber.

She huffed at me, but grinned as a thought came over her.

“Of course! Naturally, as my master, you’ll be funding all the purchases, right? I only take the highest quality vellum, and embossing is mandatory.”

I snorted at her.

“They’ll be ink on paper, and you’ll like it.” I retorted.

“Well, I guess you don’t want the presents I got you then.” She crossed her arms.

I threw my arm over my eyes, and dramatically reached out like one of the [Thespians] Iona and I occasionally saw at the theater.

“Alas! I have a treacherous apprentice! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” I cried out. “Is this the part where you throw me out of the highest window in the tower, or is that later?”

I peeked at Amber, who was rolling her eyes at me.

“Puh-lease, it’s not like I’m done stealing all your secrets. Poisoning you in your sleep happens after I’ve raided the secret library, not before.”

“Ahha! I’m safe! For as long as I don’t build a secret library, you can’t raid it!”

“Booooo!” Artemis called out. “Booooooooo! No secret library? What sort of half-baked evil sorcerer are you anyways?”

She hooked her arm in Julius’s, who grinned at her.

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right?” The Lightning mage asked the speedster.

He nodded.

“We need to construct the secret library for Elaine. Then Amber can raid it, then we can overthrow Elaine.”

“Brrrpt?”

I groaned at Auri’s question, and decided to play along.

“Yes… you can help Amber overthrow me…”

“Brrrpt!”

I was ganged up on. Surrounded on all sides.

I knew when a battle was unwinnable.

I paused at the door of the dorm, suddenly realizing a critical detail.

I hadn’t told any of my friends from Remus that I was dating Iona!

I had a brief flurry of thoughts and anxieties run through my mind. What would they think? Would they approve? Had they liked her? What-

I shook my head and banished all that from my mind. Worrying about it was pointless. It wouldn’t change anything about what was going to happen, it’d simply wind me up for no good reason. I was dating Iona, and that was that. What would happen would happen.

Plus, Iona was in class right now.

I knocked – only polite to warn anyone who was around that I was coming with guests – and entered.

“Hey Reinhard!” I greeted the Kirin, still in elvenoid form. “I’ve got some friends over for a bit, hope you don’t mind.”

She got up from the sofa, and gave us a look.

“I don’t. I’ll be in my room.”

We all sat down, and I eagerly leaned forward.

“So! Almost three years! Tell me everything that’s happened!”

“… now keep in mind, Julius was still naked and juggling the eggs while hanging from the ceiling. You know, standard Hunter’s Guild position.”

They were still working there, and while they hadn’t said it, their stories implied they were among the top hunters of the organization. Granted, each Hunter’s Guild was more or less self contained within its own city – there was no grand, overarching, intercontinental organization or anything like that – but it was still impressive. Lyon was the capital of a nation, and it wasn’t a small city.

The man in question groaned.

“Why does that have to feature every time you tell the story?” He mock-complained.

“Shush, because it’s funny.” Artemis retorted. “Anyways, we hear this sound.”

“Pffffffffffffffppppt.” Julius blew a raspberry, doing his best impression of the noise.

“And I realize the monster is farting in its sleep.”

I saw where this was going.

“Oh no.” I managed to get out around a laugh.

Artemis slapped her knee.

“Oh yes! One little spark, and-”

“Ka-boooooooooooom!” Julius mimed the size of the explosion.

No matter how old I got, flaming fart jokes didn’t stop being funny. We spent a moment chuckling, then Artemis carried on.

“Anyway, from there it was easy.” Julius said. “Killed the monster, harvested the parts, and got out of there.”

Iona chose that moment to enter.

“Elaine! You’re back! And with friends!” She gave me that huge grin that I oh, just so loved.

I patted the spot next to me.

“I am! You remember Amber, Julius, and Artemis, don’t you?”

Julius and Artemis looked at each other.

“Pay up.” Julius insisted, holding out his hand.

“Nuh-uh! We don’t know they’re dating yet!”

Julius didn’t say anything, just motioned his fingers in a ‘pay up’ gesture. Iona grinned as she plopped down on my lap, looking down at me.

“Do you have to pay more the longer we kiss?” She asked over her shoulder.

She kissed me without waiting for the answer.

“I didn’t expect to see the Moon Cult here.” Julius remarked.

“They’re like mosquitoes, they’re everywhere.” Artemis complained.

“Moon Cult?” I asked them. Iona looked very interested in all this.

Amber nodded. “They’re obsessed with the moons, and they seem to have more money than any three gods combined. I know we’re new here, but it was like they popped out of nowhere, and were suddenly everywhere, recruiting and paying silly amounts of money to anyone who joined up.”

I gave her an alarmed look.

“You didn’t join, right?”

Amber snorted.

“Please, my mind isn’t made out of money. The deal’s too good to be true, and nothing good comes out of cults.”

I gave Iona a… well, I thought it was a subtle look. She met my eyes and gave me a slow shake of her head.

Nothing from the divine then.

“We keep talking about ourselves, but Amber, what have you been up to these last few years?” Iona asked my apprentice.

“I upgraded my class! Kind of. Similar to the old one, but it’s a Gemstone element now!” Amber enthusiastically explained. “Turns out I had the right idea, and trading skill-infused gems is exactly what my class wants to do. Plus, all coins are now gemstones.”

Julius coughed while Artemis shot Amber a murderous look. She colored.

“Ok, ok, not the small coins, but-”

“Amber, you might want to stop digging yourself into a hole.” Iona advised, and she closed her mouth, then opened it again.

“You know what I mean!” She threw her hands up in frustration. Artemis smirked at her.

“Yeah, but it’s fun to yank your chain. Anything else?”

“Being a gemstone, or rather skill, merchant is great! Traveling around, meeting new people and seeing interesting skills. People are generally pretty willing to charge gems – for most of them, it’s free money! When things go wrong, I have dozens of powerful skills I can use to save my life, and I can even recharge some of the skills I use to still sell them! I don’t make as much, but my life’s worth more than the gems.”

I was nodding along. That did sound handy!

“Anyone interesting?” Iona asked.

Amber scrunched up her eyebrows.

“There’s Seigmund. I swear he follows me around, trying to snipe deals from under me. Another flea-bitten werewolf scavenger lowlife with no nose for business and-”

Amber went on in that vein for quite some time, as the rest of us traded looks.

“Who’s betting they kiss?” Iona asked.

“I’m in. No kissing.” I said.

“They’re totally going to.” Artemis said.

Julius shook his head.

“I’d love taking more of your money, but…” He trailed off.

“It’s mine anyways!” Artemis gleefully said.

“Anyways, I’ll happily take some of Iona’s money when she loses.”

“Stop betting about my love life!” Amber squeaked.

“Alright, alright. Say, since we’re all trading stories, Iona, have you heard of the time Elaine got spitroasted over a fire?” Julius asked with a grin. Artemis was rubbing off on him.

I paled in sudden horror as Iona looked way too interested, turning to me with a devious smile.

“Noooo… no I haven’t. Why don’t you tell me more?” She asked.

Like it was rehearsed, my former Ranger teammates stood up and offered Iona their elbows.

“Why don’t we take a walk together? We can tell you allll about her.”

“I’m doomed. Doomed!” I cried out as Iona happily slipped her arms into theirs, and the three of them left the suite.

“Brrrpt.” Auri agreed.

“Tell me more about your adventures, Amber.”

The woman’s eyes lit up.

“Sure! It all started right as I left the island. While my class is about trading intangibles, selling goods is still money. With that initial seed capital, I…”

I smiled and relaxed as Amber told me all about what she’d done.

I wasn’t great with the social stuff, but I wasn’t totally dumb. I knew why Artemis and Julius had dragged Iona off, and it wasn’t to regale her with embarrassing stories about me. I wouldn’t be nearly embarrassed enough if they weren’t telling them in front of me. I hoped Artemis and Julius weren’t going to interrogate Iona too badly, or try to scare her off. I liked everyone involved too much for things to go wrong.

Nothing for it but to wait and see.

“One moment, keep talking I’ll be right back.” I told everyone. I grabbed a fresh notebook, my favorite quill, and drew a two-ringed array for privacy, keeping our conversation extra-confidential.

“Hey, since everyone’s here, I’ve got a question for you all.” I asked my five closest friends after a few more hours of catching up. Julius and Artemis had returned Iona entirely unharmed, the three of them laughing, and Julius had flashed ‘approval’ in Ranger hand-talk to me.

Interesting question. Did Iona’s blessing apply to hand-talk? I should teach her if it didn’t!

“Sure, what’s going on?” Julius leaned forward, intently staring at me.

“I’m trying to work out what I should take for my third class.”

“The reading class.” Iona flippantly answered.

“How – what – I never told you I had a reading class!” I protested, outraged.

She just gestured at the communal living room, with a half-dozen of my books splayed on the coffee table.

“Bookosaurus. You’re telling me you didn’t get offered a reading class?” She raised her eyebrows doubtfully.

I grumbled and agreed. And wrote it down in my notebook… leaving plenty of extra space near Iona’s name for more notes and suggestions from her.

“Anyways, here are my classes…” I listed out all of the options I thought even had a remote chance of making it, along with a few thoughts I’d had. Everyone grew thoughtful at the list, thinking it over.

“Biomancy.” Amber was the first to break the silence. “You already have it. It synergizes well with your healing class. Your [Oath] is a powerful multiplier on it, letting you perform feats way above your level. Most importantly?”

She rubbed her fingers together, and we collectively groaned.

“Money! It’ll make you rich!”

As much as I wanted to complain, she wasn’t wrong. I wrote it down.

“You’re part of a team now, and you need to look after the people around you. [Phoenix Nurturer] would help Auri, kicking the can down the road. Who knows, maybe the ideal solution will present itself to you later.” Julius said.

“Nah, forget that. [Phoenix Immolator]. Immune to fire? Immune?[Inferno Spirit]? You could literally turn yourself into a being of fire, and just…” Artemis mimed a dozen different things I could do as a quasi-elemental, of which I got like three.

She did have a point.

“Brrrrpt!” Auri’s suggestion was [Hoard Thief], although her reasoning and motives were suspect. Mostly related to me having stolen her as an egg.

Looooots of notes.

“Well, does anyone have pros on [Mother of Modern Medicine], or can I safely axe the class once again?”

“Yeah. The power is insane.” Julius said. “If you’re happy with your existing classes, which it sounds like you are, the class would be a perfect stat-stick. Just kick back, enjoy watching the levels go up with minimal effort on your part, and use it to fuel your remaining classes.”

Iona shook her head.

“Even though the System loves that you wrote the Medical Manuscripts and basically everyone forever has used it, you want a class that you’ll love. That’s you. A fame class that you just sit back on? With how enthusiastic you are every time you’ve got a new rune or spell to show me? Please, you need the extra skill slots to do things you enjoy.”

Iona’s serious analysis was utterly ruined by her eyebrow waggle at the end.

I had a feeling this notebook would end up fully used.

“Elaine, can your biomancy make a permanent tattoo?” Julius asked.

“As long as they’re small enough, and your vitality isn’t too high, yeah. Why? Got something in mind?”

He nodded.

“I’m married to a woman who keeps losing her engagement ring, and I was wondering about more permanent methods.”

Artemis threw her hands up.

“That was one time we had to dig through monster guts, and I’d lost my hand! We got it back!”

Julius raised an eyebrow at her.

“One? One? I distinctly remember four.”

Artemis poked her tongue out at Julius.

“Those don’t count.”

He just gestured at Artemis, looking at me pleadingly.

“You see what I’m dealing with here?”

Iona laughed at the whole thing.

“Tell me what you want, I’ll draw it out, and Elaine can make the tattoo. How does that sound?”

“An eagle holding a thunderbolt!” Artemis bounded over to Iona, sitting next to her. “And a mountain behind it! Ooooh, let’s get some details in, like…”

I looked at Julius and shrugged.

“Do you want it on your front or your back, because I’m not sure anywhere else is going to fit the design Artemis is imagining.”

He smiled at his lover.

“They both work for me. I’ve got some ideas for Artemis’s tattoo…”

Sadly, they had too much vitality for me to do any real changes. As it was, it took a few hours of slowly etching the designs into their skins just to get the tattoos done.

I didn’t feel confident in giving them full body makeovers, not without a few weeks of prep time, along with potential permission to use the School’s mana reserves. Just a few obstacles too many – and they weren’t interested.

I did get Amber interested in meeting Marcelle.

“Hey Marcelle! I’ve got a fun one for you!” I dragged Amber into Marcelle’s office.

“Elaine. Who’s this?” She asked.

“Amber! A friend of mine. Her leg and eye are… interesting. I’m willing to bet, oh, 50 arcanite coins that you’ve never seen anything like it before.” I held out my hand to Marcelle, who cheerfully smiled at me and shook my hand.

“Easy money. And if I haven’t seen it before, 50 coins is a cheap price to pay. Now… what do we have here…”

Marcelle smiled at Amber and squinted, eyes flickering over details I couldn’t see.

She didn’t say anything, but while staring at Amber, rummaged around in her desk, slapping five obsidian coins onto her desk. I gleefully swept them up.

“Ahem.” Amber fake-coughed, holding out her hand.

I gave her one of the coins.

She pocketed it, and wordlessly held her hand out again.

I gave her a second coin, and glared at the proffered hand. Amber sheepishly withdrew it.

“Right, you two have fun.” I said.

“5,000 coins and the chance to study me further if you can fix my leg.” I heard Amber start to negotiate as I closed the door behind me.

“Nonsense, my work is worth…”

I whistled on my way back to the dorms. Amber could find her way back, and I wanted to keep hanging out with Artemis.

“What are your plans for the future? After the School?” Julius asked over an extravagant dinner. Not prepared by Auri, because we wanted her around to chat.

Iona and I traded devastated looks.

“I… don’t know.” I freely admitted. “I want to help people. I want to heal them. Always have. But I also need to think of myself. Be in a safe place. Preferably not annoy the local guards too much. That means Immortal lands, but from what I’ve seen of the world so far, there’s just so many more people that need help in mortal countries. Plus…”

I reached over and grabbed Iona’s hand.

“I’ve got Iona.”

She squeezed back.

“I don’t know what we’ll do after we graduate the School either.” She admitted. “I need to return to the Valkyries in Rolland, but Elaine’s presence is… awkward… to say the least. I doubt the Valkyries would welcome her, but they wouldn’t try to hurt you.”

Artemis beamed.

“Perfect! Rolland it is! We’re still stationed out of Lyon!”