I dove back into editing the book. The uneasy feeling that pushed me to contact MathMamm faded the deeper I went, but it never fully disappeared. I was still working when Blaze got home.

  She wandered into the office, gave me a quick peck on the cheek and asked how it was going. When I told her how far I wasn’t into it, she laughed, then sat down on the edge of the other desk to listen while I explained the sense of connection I kept feeling between the manuscript, the Game and my conversation with MathMamm.

  “I’ve known you long enough now to trust your feelings,” she said. “Even if you aren’t right, it’s worth looking into.”

  “I hope so.”

  “It must be nice being in one place long enough you know people. Lots of people, in your case.”

  “There are a few folks I don’t get along with. We do our best to ignore each other.”

  “That’s better than someone holding a long-time grudge.”

  “Yeah...I suppose so.”

  I heard her shift position. “How’s the book coming along? Are you understanding it?”

  “Maybe a little more than where I started. That’s like going from zero to two.”

  “That far? Must be all that extra INTELLIGENCE at work.” We both laughed.

  “Could be. Isn’t tonight your turn to make dinner?”

  “Regretfully. Any ideas? They rotated in two new agents today, and one doesn’t want anything to do with learning the Game. Says he doesn’t need it.”

  “So, what did you do? Set his tie on fire?”

  She barked a laugh. “How’d you guess?”

  “I know you somewhat now,” I said with a grin. “More likely you threatened to while he was wearing it. And everyone else laughed at him.”

  “You’re wrong about the tie. It was his pants, and he barely stopped himself from pissing himself so he could keep them wet enough I couldn’t set them on fire.” She laughed so hard she had to spin the other chair around so she could sit down. I wasn’t far behind in laughing, though I was already sitting.

  “He got the message. The rest of the staff made sure of it. The other person working with us for the next two weeks is named Viviane. She’s been a special agent almost twenty years and wants to learn. Started a week ago when she found out they were sending her here. She’s already fought a few spawns. Basic warrior type with her own crude sword and a shield. Just the leather poncho armor for now.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “So far...good. Not great,” Blaze said. “I put her in contact with Sir Andrew. He’ll set her up with some training sessions. I think she’ll be fine. Don’t think she wants to tank...just deal damage. She’s still worried about getting hit. Not hurt...just hit.”

  “Can’t blame her. That’s true of most new SCA fighters. I didn’t know anyone who liked getting hit...though there was one guy I heard about....” I let it trail off.

  If she wanted the story, she’d ask. Instead, she changed the subject back to dinner. I gave my suggestions, and she went to relax before starting. Which meant I needed to figure out what I’d be cooking tomorrow. Decisions...decisions.

  “I meant to go to the GRA today to talk about cultivation,” I told Blaze over dinner. The smell of the ravioli and garlic bread filled the kitchen, warm and familiar. “But I got busy and forgot.” I described my talk with MathMamm and how I’d be doing spawns with her tomorrow. I told Blaze that I’d talk to her more about the feeling that something in that book’s math connected to MANA and the System, even if I couldn’t name it.

  “I hope they have enough math nerds over there...or can call some in to figure it out,” I said. “But I could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “The great know-it-all First Mana Mage not know something about MANA? How could that happen?” she teased.

  “I’ve never claimed to know everything. I’m not right every time.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “No...just often enough everyone thinks you’ll always be right.”

  “That’s dangerous thinking.” I punctuated it with a forkful of ravioli. “I don’t want people dying because they think I’m always right and they stop thinking for themselves.”

  She reached over and squeezed my hand. “I know. That’s why we trust you. You try. You think. You care. And you’re still right too damn often.”

  “Except when I’m not. Like with that battery. You should have stopped me sooner.”

  “I know that now. I’ll worry more and try harder next time,” she said, still holding my hand. “I promise.”

  I smiled and squeezed her fingers. We sat there for a quiet minute before changing the subject and finishing dinner. I told her about the cleaning crew’s visit in case she was around next month when they came.

  After dinner...my turn to wash dishes...we went back to the office and she worked on her reports while I continued editing. It was peaceful, just being near each other even if we were doing our own things.

  Later, we turned in early. We both expected a busy day ahead.

  Morning light filtered weakly through the blinds when Blaze got up. The faint glow was enough for her to navigate to the bathroom and her room to get dressed. I stayed in bed a moment, thinking about the morning’s spawn fights and what Carol...or MathMamm...might tell me about that kind of math. My plan was to dig out my iPad, fully charge it and load the text part of the manuscript so she wouldn’t have to read it on a phone.

  That way, technically, I hadn’t passed the full text of the manuscript on to anyone else.

  I dawdled only about ten minutes before getting up. I used that time to send out a Healer request to the guild. There were still Shamen and Mages showing up...not just Orc fighters.

  It took a while, but I found a Level 2 Healer willing to help. New to the guild since our merge. Why she chose HealBot as her game name...I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  To keep things interesting, Carol’s son John joined us. She said he was sixteen and a half. He picked Ice Mage to complement her MANA Mage. Called himself NiceIce.

  She said he picked Ice because she used to tell him to “chill out” when he got worked up. I reminded her of the old saying that whatever you say to your kids can and will be used against you later. She had a good laugh and agreed.

  The System only gave him the option to play yesterday. Why it chooses when someone gets that option, nobody has figured out. It’s not just age. Some say maturity mixed with age...but I know plenty of immature twenty-year-olds plus who were fighting spawns.

  It was harder to figure out than the odd names people chose. At least I didn’t have to justify those.

  Around half past nine, we reached my usual parking spot in the woods. The air was cool and damp...earthy after all the rain. I gave them the Irregulars’ standard spiel about how we handled spawns. I’d box them in and take aggro; the mages would hit them from behind the SHIELDS and HealBot would patch me up if anything slipped through.

  Hopefully, nothing would.

  Before we started hunting, I taught the two new casters how to set up a shield box. I placed the front one, NiceIce and Carol set the sides. When the enemy charged, I’d close the back. Then they’d blast away with BALL and BLAST spells.

  We could hear the first group from where I expected them to be...three Orcs and two big Goblin fighters. “This is going to be easy,” I told myself as I cast a MANA SHIELD in front of us. NiceIce got his up first, MathMamm right after. It took three tries before I trusted the formation. They got practice, and I had them test BOLTs and BALLs on my shield. Carol had done that twice before.

  When the spawns reached us, it was game on. The box was still sloppy, but we trapped the three Orc Fighters and two Goblin Fighters. All five charged, slamming into my MANA wall hard enough I felt each impact through the ground to my bones.

  NiceIce’s first ICE BALL overlapped my shield, and I took a couple points of damage. Five long, painful seconds later my HEALTH was back up full. HealBot was a little slow. I poked with my rapier and let the mages handle most of the killing. Thankfully, that ICE BALL hit was the only damage I took. NiceIce apologized at least ten times.

  I made him go through the bodies for loot. I showed all three how to do it because they’d be doing it often. For a spawn run, it was a nice amount of coins. We split them as evenly as possible. Same with the items. They couldn’t use the armor, but they could use swords, so everyone got one.

  My cut was going to the guild. Mostly. The Orc gear was still top-tier spawn drops.

  We continued, using the same method, for the next two spawns. Each had at least one caster. One of them used fire and knocked down the ICE SHIELD in two hits, but NiceIce got it back up immediately without being told. He was learning. Teenagers can have incredible reflexes once they develop the skill.

  His mother wasn’t far behind him. HealBot remained the slowest but she was improving. All three of them leveled twice by the end. NiceIce hit Level 3, his mother reached Level 4 and so did HealBot. A solid run.

  MathMamm took DETECT MANA so she could see Ley Lines and TRANSFER MANA so she could recharge when she was near one. I didn’t think she’d be doing much fighting, but with her son...who knew. He wanted to keep going. I didn’t blame him. I told them to practice their boxes so more groups would want them.

  Her son had friends he wanted to run with, but his mother joined the 19th Street Irregulars. With high school out, we’d seen a swarm of older teens joining the fighting. I wasn’t looking forward to some of them biting off more than they could chew and getting hurt, or even killed when taking on spawns by themselves that were too far above their level.

  Carol said she thought she could barely see movement in a Ley Line or in her MANA when she cast a spell. More levels would help. On the way back to town, Carol and I planned to talk more about MANA tomorrow. She looked through the section of the book that triggered my suspicion about a MANA connection.

  I also gave each of them a 25-point MANA Battery. With TRANSFER MANA, Carol could keep hers and her son’s topped off.

  She said she’d talk to some of her colleagues and people at the GRA to see what she could find. We agreed to meet again tomorrow morning for another run.

  All in all, it was a good morning.

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