The mechanism by which truth-telling Skills work is generally understood to be a limited form of mind-reading. Most, if not all, such Skills can only detect if the subject believes they are telling the truth or not. Defining what is objectively true would require both an understanding of objective truth as well as some form of divination magic, which has never been scientifically validated.

  As beliefs and even memories can change over time, such Skills should never be considered infallible. Those that typically receive them, such as high-Level Guards, Magistrates, and Judges, must be well-trained in their use. It is ironic that those with such Skills – and without said training – are often more easily led astray than those without. Ignore anything you might read about such Skills in popular fiction, for they constantly exaggerate the worth of such Skills in the pursuit of literary laziness.

  - Rufus Veres, Level 29 Prolix Historian, Oddities of the System

  Block sent us to our room to wait and went off to find Mason. Less than ten minutes later Mason opened the door and strode in by himself. He pulled out his privacy ward and activated it. His tail lashed from side to side as he looked at me, but his voice remained calm.

  “Azure, give me a report on the incident.”

  I quickly summarized what had happened, leaving out nothing – including the fact that Elin had managed to cast four times before I interrupted her. His expression darkened at that.

  “I see. Block didn’t notice how many times she cast.” He turned to the guys and asked them if they had anything to add. When they shook their heads, he sighed, then sat down on the bunk where Elin was supposed to be sleeping tonight. His tail curled around behind him and dangled almost to the floor by his feet.

  “Is Pain Bolt really that bad of a Spell? I mean, yeah, even the name sounds bad, but I am surprised it hurt that guy so badly. He was Tier 2, shouldn’t he have resisted it better?” I was honestly curious. Would my shotgun have worked so well on a Tier 2, even a non-combat Class? I wasn’t sure.

  Mason shook his head. “You said that man was a Laborer, right?” I nodded, and he continued. “Pain Bolt is a purely magical attack, so to resist it, you need high Control and Barrier Attributes. A Laborer would have a great deal of Endurance and Strength, and should be able to take a lot of physical damage, but that wouldn’t matter when he was hit by Pain Bolt.”

  “What does ‘purely magical’ mean?” Raylan asked before I could.

  “Most Spells, especially low-Level ones, don’t actually cause magical damage,” Mason explained to my surprise. “Consider Zaire’s Earth Spike. What is the base rune and its effect – without modifiers?” he looked at the Mage.

  “It is Earth, Swordmaster, and it conjures a small amount of earth if cast on its own.”

  “Exactly. Firebolt has a base rune of Fire, Lightning Bolt comes from Lightning, and so on. The thing is, once the Spell material is conjured, it acts much like natural earth, fire, or lightning. It generally obeys physical laws, with the exception of any modifier runes used on it. It’s not natural for fire to fly through the air, but once it hits a target, it will burn like regular fire, unless you stack modifiers like Ignition or Blast onto it.

  “Regardless, unless you use some uncommon and higher-Tier modifiers, fire damage is resisted primarily by Endurance while a purely magical effect like pain is resisted primarily by Barrier. I doubt that man had more than twenty – probably more like fifteen – points in Barrier. That is well within the range of a Tier 0 Spell to overcome.

  “It may not be intuitive, but most elemental Mages – like Zaire – are actually much stronger against other Mages than they are against physical Classes like Fighters. On the other hand, the rare Mage with a mental or pain-based attack like Elin is much more effective against a physical Class and less so against another Mage or any Class with high Barrier and Control.”

  He gave us a serious look as I nodded slowly, absorbing the information.

  “Az, I haven’t given you this bit of advice yet, because of your Aspect, but I’ve already told Raylan not to neglect Barrier, and Zaire to make sure he puts points in Endurance, exactly for this reason. You want to have balance with your defensive Stats, or you’ll end up vulnerable to the right kind of attack. Just like that Laborer was to Pain Bolt. Any questions?”

  I was sure I’d have some tomorrow, but for now it was a lot to take in and I needed to process it. After Raylan and Zaire also passed on the chance, Mason looked to me again.

  “I wasn’t going to ask this, but now I have to. When I discussed Elin’s Level 3 Skill with her, she described how Pain Transfer worked, but she didn’t explain how she’d figured it out. I asked if she’d tested it, and she hesitated a bit too long before claiming she’d used the pain from her own injury against one of the wolves. Since none of you mentioned anything else during the debrief, I didn’t probe further, which was clearly a mistake on my part.

  “What exactly did happen? She tried the Spell on one of you, didn’t she?”

  I looked at Zaire and Raylan with a hint of panic and Mason sighed.

  “She looked a bit like that, when I asked her, though honestly she’s better at hiding her emotions than you are, Az.”

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  Defeated, I confessed to Mason. I didn’t break the deal, Mason figured it out. And besides, she promised to follow orders and I never told her to join the fight today! Actually, I ordered her to put her weapons away and she didn’t, so fuck the stupid deal!

  When I was finished, Mason didn’t give any immediate indication of his thoughts, instead confirming that Raylan and Zaire had nothing else to add. When they agreed with my story, he looked back at me, his expression unreadable.

  “While I never like to be lied to, even by omission, what you did was reasonable given the circumstances. You weren't a typical Squad with a clear hierarchy when you went into the dungeon. Even if you were, it's natural for there to be some friction at first, and Elin in particular hasn’t hidden her dislike for you, Az. I have no issue with you settling things within your group. At the same time, I’ll certainly be recommending to the instructors at DGA that they place you two in separate Squads for training.”

  “DGA?” I asked, confused.

  He laughed. “Yes, the Delver’s Guild Academy, where you’ll be doing your training. Officially, it’s named the Delver’s Guild Finishing School, but that’s only because our Guildmaster has a juvenile sense of humor. No one calls it that. It’s DGA or the Academy most of the time.”

  He put his hands on his knees and stood, turning off the privacy ward and storing it as he did.

  “I’ll see you first thing in the morning, recruits. Get some sleep. We might be stuck in town for an extra day, hopefully not two, but we’re not going to waste that time. You had your break this afternoon. Oh, and before I forget, here’s your share of the dungeon reward. Elin will have to do without.”

  Mason transferred two eagles to each of us, nodded, and strode out, closing the door behind him. The three of us briefly speculated on what was going to happen with Elin, but tiredness was rapidly catching up to us. We’d started the morning Wasted early, so it wasn’t long before Raylan was turning off the room’s dim mana lamp and we slipped into our beds. At least I didn’t forget to tell PAST to set my alarm.

  [TAH-TA-DA-DA-DAH-]

  “Argh, make it stop!” I cursed out loud, and PAST shut off the fucking noise. I looked around to see that Raylan and Zaire were both blearily looking at me with confused expressions. Fucking PAST, I bet they have some nice pretty sound for a default alarm…

  The Army departed around the time we made it out into the small square. Mason talked with Captain Rivers and let us know that they would arrange for the Tutorial in Arcadia to be delayed until our arrival if possible. I waved goodbye at Madzi, Laier, Kane, and the other soldiers as they gathered in formation before heading out.

  True to Mason’s word, we spent most of the day training. Confined to the small square between the barracks, there wasn’t space to do most of our drills. Instead, we alternated between physical and magical training. We started with weapon drills, working our way through various cuts, parries, blocks, and strikes – Raylan with his knives, Zaire using his staff, and me with the shortsword.

  Once we were getting tired, Mason switched us to Spell practice. Vale sketched out the Tier 0 rune for Fire on one of the pages she’d removed from her journal and gave it to me. It was the first time I’d attempted to learn a Tier 0 rune, and it sucked. The rune was significantly more complex than Ignite, consisting of an exterior circle with three wavy lines on the inside, each touching one other.

  To make the spellform work, I would have to ‘draw’ the entire thing in a single, fluid, mental brushstroke. That ‘easiest’ way to do it was to first form the exterior circle – starting from a point just before the first interior ‘stroke’. I labored even to get the circle perfectly even, and then once I did, had to continue the mental drawing smoothly into the interior lines. An hour flew by as I sat on one of the wooden benches set around the square, staring at that Wasted rune. I had to take regular breaks to let my focus recover, otherwise I ended up dizzy with the world seeming to spin around me if I let it hit zero.

  Then we were up, and it was time for an exhausting series of exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, squats – which we did with our packs on – and even the devilish torture device known as a ‘burpee’. Between sets, Zaire stepped closer to Mason.

  “Swordmaster Mason, may I remind you that my people don’t benefit from this kind of…“ he trailed off at Mason’s cool look, then got back into position with Raylan and me. Mason seemed to know exactly how far he could push each of us before we’d faint, puke, or just collapse. Actually, fainting might not be so bad right about now…

  We finally got a water break, some rations for breakfast, and then it was back to studying. I managed to cast Fire for the first time partway through the next hour, and I cried out in glee as a small ball of fire appeared in the air in front of me. It cost me four mana, which indicated that my spellform still needed work, since it should have only taken two.

  The little flame just sat there – like Conjure Water, it would fall to the ground if anything touched it – and burned merrily for about a minute before flickering and vanishing. Apparently, more powerful Spells burned out faster than a basic Cantrip. Sadly, I couldn’t reliably repeat what I’d done that time before we had to start running laps of the square.

  By the end of the day, the three of us were completely spent, and I could still only cast Fire one out of every three or so attempts. Dinner was a hearty bowl of stew with a large hunk of bread – not conjured, thankfully – that Block had picked up from the saloon, which was one of the few places open on a Sunday. Mason finally dismissed us after dinner – with strict instructions not to leave the barracks square – and the three of us retreated to our room.

  I barely had the energy to clean up before plopping down on my bed. Raylan produced a deck of cards from his Inventory, and we spent the next hour or two trying to teach Zaire poker. It was a miserable failure at first, as he seemed unable to bluff whatsoever.

  “Gunner Az, one does not lie to one's friends. It is simply not proper.”

  I groaned and tried yet another way to explain it.

  “When we’re sparring, do you try to hit me?”

  “Of course, Gunner, that is the purpose of sparring.”

  “Well, then think of lying – bluffing – in poker like a kind of sparring. The game doesn’t work if you don’t bluff, just like sparring doesn’t work if you don’t try to hit me.”

  “Yeah, think of it like a kind of training!” Raylan agreed. “Someday, you might be in a situation where you need to lie to an enemy, right? You should do your best to bluff when we’re playing, just like you do your best when sparring!”

  “I see. Thank you for the explanation, Gunner Az and Fighter Raylan.”

  It was like a switch had been flipped in the Mage’s mind. From that point on, he bluffed the shit out of us with that stoic expression never once changing, even when we called him on it. Defeated, we gave up and went to sleep.