He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he hadn’t slept since arriving here in the Wood of Sorrow, or all of the miles he had walked, run for his Life, and fought through, or maybe the fact that he had killed monsters, but he was damn tired. Reina was busy getting ready for bed too, untying her hair and letting it drape down to her shoulders. She really was pretty, he thought. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t wanna stare at her and make her think that he was some kind of weirdo after a few minutes, and he could hear her settle.

  He turned back over to her. “Say, Reina, do you think this historian is going to laugh in my face about the Sacred Cipher?”

  “It depends really on how he’s feeling that day if I’m being honest with you.”

  Depends on how he’s feeling? It’s his job, his duty to do so as the town historian. I wish I could just shrink my duties and not be given an Article 15 for dereliction of them.

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Huh?” She responded with a look of embarrassment and regret. “Yes, I do know him. His name is Angus Till, but that’s a story for tomorrow.

  He didn’t press. “What are you? What is your class?”

  “I’m an enhancer.”

  “That’s right. And you said you would explain further later, after bringing my stamina bar back up to full with a simple touch. Once we are out of the sunset crab mother’s forest and no longer in a pinch for lack of better words.”

  She chuckled at that joke. Was she finally getting my jokes? Rook smiled. I am slowly chipping away at that hard exterior. That’s pretending that I’m not funny.

  “An enhancer is essentially somebody who can buff someone else with power, stamina, abilities, and traits.”

  “I am familiar with buffs. At least I think so.”

  “You’re familiar with a buffer? She asked, surprised.

  “Yes, I actually learned it from a video game,” he responded. Her confused face told him that she wanted him to continue. “There’s these things called video games, which are good time wasters, for escapism. They are essentially a simulation where you can play as a character in another world and go on quests and fight monsters and get loot and…” He stopped.

  “Do essentially what you’re doing here as if Yorthon were a video game,” she interjected.

  He hated to admit it, but she was right. He was a video game character right now, just a sucky one.

  “Then, as you know, buffers can increase your stats, abilities, and even your stamina. I’ve heard some can increase your magic, given the ample amount of training, but that is extremely rare. I’m nowhere near that level.” She looked at her own hands. “We are similar to healers in that sense, though, instead of placing a palm on you and restoring your stamina, a healer can heal your bones, suture your wounds closed, and even bring a person back to life. I’ve even seen firsthand somebody’s spine be reattached after being ripped out during a fight.

  “You saw that?”

  She didn’t get that joke and looked too tired to press. “Extensive training must happen before they can do anything of that nature, though mostly newer healers within their first few years of training can heal small wounds, but once again, that’s still very rare.”

  “Can somebody be both?”

  “I’ve never seen it, maybe that’s something you can ask Angus tomorrow. I know he’s really into healers, so maybe he can help you out. In fact, I think that he has a story about meeting one in the Strangle Marsh.”

  “Dude.” He sighed inwardly. “Aren’t there any happy locations? I’ve gotten nothing but killer boars and crabs. I’d kill to visit the swamp of cotton candy.”

  She smiled. “I’m assuming you made a joke just now; however, I’m unfamiliar with a candied cotton.” As for your serious question, sometimes speaking about a subject can open other doors, and maybe you can be given a quest eventually that will reveal somebody who can both enhance and heal.” She bit her lip and reached over to the nightstand and pulled out her journal. Flipping through the pages. “Here, there might be other classes that can heal, but it’s been said that those were bred out of existence from the Bloodstone. The only healers allowed are those who are born with it. Again, this is a question to ask Angus.”

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  What a name. The last conjured must have been from Scotland.

  “So we have an enhancer that can restore stamina and a not-so-strong battlemage.” He gave her a dissatisfied look.

  “Give yourself more credit. Tonight, you truly impressed me. You did something that I’ve never seen and thought impossible to do. You were able to focus on a person and manipulate them, without hurting them well, for the most part. I can’t guarantee his safety after leaving the bar, but at least for a little while, he will be a rich man.”

  “Yeah, I was pretty great. Wasn’t I?” Rook asked, ignoring the slice of humble pie. He closed his eyes and began to drift when the narrator’s voice came out in his head. The words popped up in his black vision.

  Would you like to view the daily summary yes/ no

  Yes.

  Samuel Rook Merrell

  Copper Rank

  Level 5

  Experience points: 12 of 300

  Challenge coins: 1 of 8

  Current party, Reina Jax enhancer level 10

  Location: Ollar City, Brianna’s Tavern, The Stumbling Ogre

  Current quests:

  Find the Sacred Cipher

  After reading the notification, he closed his eyes. Before he knew it he fell asleep quickly. In the dream he was floating in an orange sky of white clouds. Leaning his head back, he inhaled the arid air, burning his nostril hairs. He felt the wind at high altitude, weightless, as if he were drifting on a parachute again. Great, did I get reset? I don’t know if I can do it. The Woods of Sorrow was already hard enough. The patchy white clouds passed by him, passed through him as his weightless body drifted down towards the ground. The dark soil coming up to meet him was black as his liver. The silver trees that were all around him were withered, reminding him of steel colored cactuses.

  His feet connected with the dark earth, and he began to walk. There was no life to be found, not a growing plant, not an animal, nothing. After several minutes of walking, he realized he wasn’t alone and nearly jumped out of his skin. Striding just ahead was a man in a black robe. The man’s skin color was grayish, and he reminded Rook of the bloated body that he’d seen one time during a shift that washed up on a boat launch.

  Oh God, not again, he thought as the good old-fashioned PTSD hit. However, he noticed a few things about the body. One it didn’t have that same God-awful smell that the other one did. Two, it was walking, a familiar stride, somewhere between a fool and the swagger of a twenties gangster.

  Wait a damned second. He placed his hand on the stranger’s shoulder and ripped it back towards him. He was now face-to-face with the stranger. The shaggy brown hair, a mustache that was within army regulations, but still made him look like a fifteen-year-old who was trying hard to be seventeen. Three distinct black triangles were placed on his grey neck, identical to his own collarbone tattoo. Rook looked for a while at the man, first in disbelief at the two horns that grew out of his forehead, then at his familiar face.

  “Knox?!”

  The stranger in black robes stared at Rook, as if he had just farted in a stuck elevator. “Yeah, man, who do you think it was? I’ve been talking to you for like the last two minutes.” Knox crossed his arms. “Have you not been listening to me? Well, you were quiet and I mean-”

  Rook pulled the man in for a hug. “Dude, I missed you. God, I thought you died.” He backed up, looked at his friend, and laughed. “What are you? What class is this? You look like a piss poor version of a Halloween monster.”

  “I’m an infernal dude, an infernal necromancer.”

  Rook’s mouth gaped open.

  “Yeah, and guess where you are, bud? You’re in the Infernal kingdom, beneath the world at the edge of Yorthon.” Knox swept his hand around. “Isn’t it pretty?” he said, sarcastically. “Dead trees, dead ground, dead things, monsters right out of freaking the nerdy kids’ journal in your squad.”

  “Wow, man, I was just talking to someone about him.” Rook chuckled.

  “You were talking to someone about your soldiers?” Knox asked.

  “Sort of I was talking to a fried goblin that I accidentally killed. Well, I guess not really accidentally. I was trying to save this lady who was kidnapped.”

  “Seems you’ve been busy, me, not so much. I’ve been performing small tasks for my impromptu ruler. He is a buzzkill, but I guess he’s kind of like my necromancer dad here.” He shook his head. “I can’t catch a break. But at least he’s not as bad as Staff Sergeant Buck.”

  They both laughed. It felt good to laugh and talk to his friend again.

  “I can't believe he made us his gunner and driver for the exercise." Rook gave a bitter chuckle, then straightened. "Bro, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, even if this is some weird fever dream. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I came really close to letting this giant crab yoink me into the afterlife, becasue I thought this place was-”

  “Stop talking like that, man!” Knox snapped. “I told you if you ever talk like that again, I’m gonna kick your ass. It’s you and me, dude, you and me together after this bullshit in the military is done.” Knox placed a hand on Rook’s shoulder. “We’re gonna start a hobby shop business together, right? I’m not letting you quit on me, I’m telling you, I wouldn’t be the same–so stop that shit.” Knox sighed, getting off his soapbox. “I told you that talking to someone won’t make you weak. Despite what those bitch ass Platoon Sergeants have to say.”

  Rook thought about the demons he had. Lord knew there were days he spoke to himself in the mirror, telling himself not to end it. As long as Knox was here, he wouldn’t let the demons win. He was all too familiar with mental health. Hell, every ten calls they were dispatched to in Washington were a suicidal ideation or a completed one. The rainy season was a hell of a thing, and over time, it took a toll on all of the patrols. Some shifts, he would be mentally exhausted, just for his Squad leader to say suck it up and don’t be late for morning PT. That same Squad leader took his life three weeks prior to their field training.

  Rook’s mind shifted from scene to brutal scene. Now, he was thrown into this place with vile goblins and giant monsters. It was common knowledge that people suck, but Centrulia is probably worse.

  “I think about it all the time, you know? Staff Sergeant Razzir. All his talks about seeking help and being weak, but he ended it.”

  Knox clapped his friend on the shoulder and squeezed. “I know, man. Me too.”

  They continued walking in silence for a while. Up ahead in the distance, Rook could see a castle that looked like it was out of a concept artist’s nightmare.

  “So how am I here anyway? Hell, how are you here? Was it the same for you? The interface? Do you have a narrator, God Maker System or whatever?"

  “Bro, we’re in the Army. Or I guess we were. I’m guessing Buck got his chonies in a twist and reported us AWOL,” he said with a chuckle. “Anyways, you know I can barely walk and breathe at the same time. You gotta be slower with your questions.” Knox laughed again, throwing his head back like a cartoon character. “First, I started floating after we touched that freaking crystal in the forest. I found out from our Infernal knowledge master that we’re actually intertwined because we both touched that crystal at the same time.

  “Damn, I figured you’d figure out more about this world than I could. Also, a knowledge master? How cheap is that?”

  Knox laughed. “Whatever, man, I need all the help I can get. We may be going to war soon with the other Infernal Lords soon.”

  ?─??????─?

  Life isn’t some kind of grand destiny.

  It’s just a collection of decisions shaped by the moments that happen around us.

  Of Moon and Magic follows a silver-haired girl. Her mana was weak, but that never dulled her hunger for magic.

  We follow her steps. We weigh her choices. We sit with her loneliness. In a world where magic is everything, war is constant, and morality is little more than a neglected guideline.

  Will she become just another cog in the machine?

  Or will she be the one to end it all?

  Only one way to find out.

  Point of Interest:

  Update Schedule

  ?─??????─?