Chapter 24: Chapter 24 Finally, a time skip

Over the next several days, Nathan’s interactions became more cordial with the other members of the Heirs. Nathan didn’t complain at their strenuous exercise and practice, and joined in to push them forward as he adapted to the schedule. In fact, he started pushing even harder than any of them.

He requested that they squirrel away extra food for him so he could replenish his stamina to fuel the exercise - and the [Regeneration] that came along with it. They made fun of him for it, but it was more good-natured jokes about the stupid amount of food Nathan was putting away. Stella in particular had innumerable dimensional pockets in her robes and Nathan hadn’t yet been able to deplete their bottomless depths of snacks.

He was still somewhat of an outsider in the group, but they’d known each other for years and Nathan couldn’t expect to overcome that in a mere week. The barriers of awkwardness were breaking down in both directions. Nathan didn’t feel the need to calculate each joke, and felt freer in having fun with each individual in the Heirs.

He felt the closest to Stella, who regarded Nathan and his [Magic Resistance] as something wondrous and special. It was hard to resist a pretty girl paying you special attention, even if she was a few years younger. She started practicing increasingly lethal spellwork with Nathan, and soon enough he was dodging storms of [Firebolts], being inundated in jets of fire and shattering layers of force shields. Stella seemed to especially prize the time they spent directly contesting spellwork, saying it was fantastic training for making her spells more resilient and controlled.

Khachi was trying to be friendly, regarding it as important to be on good terms with every member of ‘his’ team. But he clearly had a chip on his shoulder, and was bad at being diplomatic.

Sarah was friendly, and to some extent the most relatable. Stella and Khachi were driven and scary, and spent a lot of time off in their own place practicing their own disciplines of magic with a single-minded determination. But Nathan spent several evenings hanging out with Sarah and Aarl, trading jokes with Sarah about their schooling and practice as Aarl dourly maintained his arsenal, or joined his sister in whittling.

Aarl could be a bit brooding, and tended to avoid conversation unless he had to engage. When he did butt in it was usually with a comment so wry that Nathan had to stop and appreciate the levels of sarcasm on display.

He still hadn’t seen much of the world outside of the Adventurer’s Guild and the training complex, but that wasn’t for the worst. Nathan was learning how to survive Davrar, and he was pretty sure it would be hard to find somewhere safer than the training grounds of the Adventurer’s Guild - despite the bruises, sprains and broken bones he healed in training.

After almost a fortnight, his skills and Talents were advancing some, but seemingly very slowly.

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