A wobbling and fluctuating blob of light hovered off the tip of Dryth's fingers and began slowly drifting toward the end of the firing lane no faster than a falling leaf on a clear day. It didn't even make it halfway to the target before it destabilized and collapsed like a popped bubble, creating a barely noticeable flash that was more akin to a feeble sparkle.

  "That was better than yesterday?" Sindri offered in an attempt to be comforting.

  "I'll take that." Dryth replied. He was frowning at himself and his attempt, but it was out of scrutiny, not frustration. "I'm not expecting to suddenly become a massively powerful mage that can learn any pure cast spell with ease, and improvement is improvement. I just wish it was easier to see where I'm making mistakes so I can address them."

  Sindri narrowed his eyes at Dryth's hands. "I'm not really sure what you're missing either. It's supposed to be..." He pointed his tail at the target and a needle-sized bolt of flashing light appeared and flew over with the force of a thrown baseball. "More like that, although mine isn't that great either. Even with out soulbond I can't feel inside of you what you're doing, so I don't know what we're doing differently."

  "I'll get it eventually, like you said I'm getting better even if its not by leaps and bounds, but I guess we're both limited to the base power of Sparkle Dart's card until we figure it all out." He started channeling mana to his fingertips again, keeping his mind centered on the image of the Sparkle Dart he'd cast using the card. "At least we aren't trying a while different school of spell though, the way Ewan's been talking about it it's going to be a nightmare to start on."

  The massive metal door behind them slammed into the wall, creating a massive booming sound that physically shook the both of them. The glow forming in front of Dryth's hand shattered like glass as he lost concentration and he whipped around to see what had just happened.

  Ewan was standing there in the doorway with his foot outstretched. "Ah, there you are students! I went to the laboratory first, but I should have known you'd be diligently practicing like I told you too!"

  Blinking in shock at his teacher, Dryth forced his jaw back into place at glacial speeds. "Did you just kick the door open?"

  "Oh, I did. Apologies, I'm sure that was startling. I'm just so excited!" He stepped inside the training room and turned that motion into a series of spins that brought him right nest to Dryth and Sindri. "I finally got a reply!" He held up a letter like it was some mystical treasure.

  "From the Director?" Dryth asked excitedly. He still hadn't managed to get Ewan to spill what his relationship was to the person in charge of the entire Association, but knowing his teacher had an in with them to help him deal with the licensing issue was a balm for his worries.

  "No, I've gotten loads of replies from her, but none of them have been that useful. I can't in good conscience put one of the 'this is an emergency read this immediately' markers on the letters I've been sending to get her to pay attention to the brouhaha with you, sorry about that, so she's just been sending me various versions of 'I'm busy I'll get to it later stop bothering me' replies. I bet she's not even reading them herself and is making a flunky do it." He grumbled.

  "Don't apologize for that." Dryth told him, "My problem isn't an actual emergency and there's no need to cry wolf." As much as the immature, needy part of him desperately wanted Ewan to call it an emergency he was sure that the term was reserved for rampaging monsters or rouge mages out to wreak havoc.

  "Cry wolf?"

  Dryth shook himself out of his train of thought. "Uh, it's a saying. If you act like a lie is a real emergency or problem enough times no one will believe you even if there is a real problem because they'll just think you're lying again."

  "Huh." Ewan tilted his head to one side as he considered that. "Haven't heard that one before. Good point attached to it. Anyhoo, no the reply I got is from my connection at the Bounty Agency. Well, one of my connections but this one's positioned in just the right spot to give us a great opportunity!"

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Sindri perked up and started swaying from side to side. "Are we going to go on that tour you talked about?"

  "No!"

  Disappointed, Sindri drooped down and curled partway around Dryth's neck do his head wasn't visible. "Oh."

  Ewan continued on, momentarily unaware of Sindri's pouting. "The tour would have been for if the two of you had shown more interest in becoming some flavor of merchants, I have some acquaintances that are Contractor-merchants or just mage-merchants in general, so I would have asked them to let you look at their facilities and how they do things. The Bounty Agency isn't really a good place for tours, the vast majority of their spaces are just offices and workspaces, plus I can show you around any of the bounty stations myself without needing to ask for a special tour. No, what I have managed to arrange for you is even better than a tour!"

  Dryth had already become used to Sindri's whiplash of moods as excitement overrode anything else that was happening. The coatl mantled his wings and stared at Ewan with wide eyes. "Really? What's better than a tour?"

  "You two will be accompanying a few other novice bounty hunters on a job!"

  "Really!?" Sindri threw himself off of Dryth and began bobbing up and down in the air as he pumped hos wings furiously. "We're going on an adventure! We're going on an adventure!" He sang.

  "What? There's no way we're ready for something like that." Dryth protested. "We have one card that can do anything other than make a small light each, and neither of us have gotten close to being able to pure cast Sparkle Dart."

  Ewan stopped dancing in place to Sindri's singing. "Oh, you've been trying that on your own? Great job! If you start to really struggle feel free to ask for help, of course, but I love to see your enthusiasm."

  "You don't want to go on an adventure?" Sindri dropped back onto Dryth, forcing him to bend his knees and grab the wall to deal with the sudden weight landing on him. Sindri stared deep into Dryth's eyes. "Please can we go? Please, please pleas please please pleasepleaseplease-"

  "How old are you!?" Dryth demanded, pushing Sindri's head up and away from him. "It's not that I don't want to go... Okay, no I really don't want to, but if we're doing this..." He sighed deeply and continued reluctantly, "If we're going to be bounty hunters for any amount of time, getting early experience is a good idea. I just don't know if we're ready for even the early experience for novices. Like I said, we have one useful card."

  "Produce Light is useful! Also, I'm eighty-three years old, if I got the conversion right. I have plenty of experience!"

  "Sindri is correct, Produce Light can be useful in many situations. Not usually combat, but many others."

  "Alright, fine. But is this safe? If the danger outweighs the benefits it isn't worth it."

  "Never trust anyone who gives you an absolute guarantee of safety." Ewan counseled them. "Nothing is even entirely safe. In this case though, it should be within a tolerable level of safety. The excursion I managed to wrangle you an invite for is relatively standard for novice bounty hunters that want to see if they can hack it and others who are contemplating the role seeing what it's like. It consists of a fairly easy bounty that's been checked and double-checked to make sure there's no real dangers lurking off to the side and you'll be escorted and led by more experienced hunters that will be doing most of the work. You'll be shadowing them and providing what assistance or help they ask you for while learning an idea of the basics."

  "That sounds less... I don't know, overly concerned about safety than I would expect from a government organization. The Association would never do anything like that." Dryth commented.

  Ewan rolled his eyes. "No they wouldn't, the pansies. The Bounty Agency is a bit more..." He waved his hand as he searched for a word. "Free form, shall we say. They work with people that are adventurers in all but name, literally, and adventurers are generally not the type to be held down by leagues and leagues of red tape. The Bounty Agency is still an agency run by the government, but they've found that there really is a limit where too much bureaucracy becomes a hindrance."

  Dryth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Alright we-"

  "Yes!" Sindri shouted with glee. "Adventuuuure!"

  Dryth let out an exasperated sigh. "You can do things without me, including this."

  "No, I need my human translator around. Also you move faster than I can right now so you make good transportation too."

  "Whatever," Dryth said, crossing his eyes in annoyance. "We're going, I guess. This will let us see..." He glanced at Sindri. "This will let me see if I can deal with it. When is this excursion?"

  "Well," Ewan told him gleefully, "If we head to the teleport chamber now, we'll have just enough time to walk over to the bounty station we need to go to and give you a quick look around of one of their standard facilities!"

  Holding the urge to smack Ewan around the head was harder than Dryth was expecting in that moment. "Why did you agree to something this soon? I thought we'd at least have a day or two!"

  "My contact told me they had an opening in the one scheduled for today and I just got their letter." Ewan grabbed Dryth's shoulders, which took some maneuvering to not squish Sindri's coils, and started pulling him toward the door. "Come now, let's not be late! It'd be very rude to my friend and won't give any of the folks you'll be working with today a very good impression of you!"