Chapter 74: Seventy Two

“I didn’t say you could leave.” Darius said abruptly, his merriment fading away to be replaced with a stern expression.

So close. Ears and shoulders dropping, I reluctantly turned away from the door I was about to sneak through. Victoria hadn’t moved from her position at the end of the table when I’d begun my strategic retreat, and merely shook her head in amusement as I trudged over to stand beside her.  

“Now then, as your team contributed to the death of the Pharaoh twice, I will be awarding you two hundred contribution points. A hundred for each assisted kill,” Darius began, and I scowled, opening my mouth to argue over the low amount, but the guild leader continued speaking before I could. “However, because you also contributed to the deaths of your fellow guild members, I will be deducting a hundred and fifty points.” 

“You-.” My words were abruptly cut off as a red hand clamped over my mouth, and in retaliation, I sank my teeth into the flesh of Victoria’s palm. 

“You will also be removed from the dungeon roster for the next two weeks.” Corvus added, lips twitching as he watched me struggle against my captain's restraining hold.

“Yes, Sir.” Victoria responded, while I used my free hand to flip him off. 

“Dismissed.” The guild leader said, gesturing for us to leave, and ducking under the table just in time to avoid the ball of fire I’d flung at his head.

“Minus another five points, for attacking a commanding officer.” Darius called out from under the table, as the other three men laughed at his predicament. 

Five times four is twenty, we can afford to lose twenty points. We’ve already lost a hundred and fifty-five, what’s twenty more? As Victoria used her free hand to grab me around the waist and began carrying me out of the room, while still keeping my mouth covered, I dug through my bag searching for one of my thunder crack bombs. 

Sadly, the Kijo seemed to sense my thoughts, and left the room at a run, not giving me the chance for revenge. Passing through the gathering room, I saw the blond-haired elf, Freya, perched on the lap of a dark-haired human male who I assumed was Devon. They both watched us leave with no attempts to conceal their gleeful expressions, and I desperately wanted to send a wave of fire in their direction. But, alas, Victoria’s quick stride had us out of the gathering room before I’d even fully formed that thought in my mind.  

Victoria didn’t release me until we’d reached my lab, which was now secured with a heavy wooden door. Pia, Rainy and Kip all stood outside the lab waiting for our return, and I frowned at the sight of the lock on the door. 

“I take it the meeting didn’t go well?” Kip asked, but I ignored him in favor of rattling the door handle to check if it was locked. 

“It went better than I thought it would,” Victoria said. 

I scoffed at that, spinning to face the captain of our team. “Better than you thought? We lost a hundred and fifty contribution points.” 

“A hundred and fifty-five,” the Kijo corrected, flicking my ear. “You lost us an extra five for attacking the guild leader.” 

“Wow, having Foxy around certainly pays off.” Pia said, rubbing her hands together with a wide grin. “Last time we killed them, Commander Corvus deducted three hundred points.” 

“And remember the time we pissed off that hoard of goblins, and they chased us all the way back to camp? We lost two hundred for that one,” Kip added, shaking his head with a chuckle. 

“Wait.” Eyes wide, I looked from the pair to Victoria, a sudden feeling of uneasiness in my stomach. “How many points do we have?” 

“With the added forty-five points we gained today, we’re at negative six hundred and thirty-two.” The captain admitted our current standing with a sigh. 

“WHAT!” I exclaimed loudly, horrified by the situation my team was apparently in. “You only need two hundred and fifty points to reach silver rank.”

“Getting silver rank is easy,” Rainy said softly, a light smile on her lips. “Keeping it... is another story.” 

Oh god, I’ve been paired up with a team of delinquents, I groaned, pressing my forehead against the wooden door that was locking me out of my lab. I need sleep. 

“Does anyone have the key?” I asked, not bothering to open my eyes. 

“Nope, we figured you had it.” Pia said from behind me, and I let out an annoyed sigh. 

Pyr, burn it down, I mentally directed, taking a few steps away from the door as my wisp appeared.

In moments, the wooden door was covered in flames, and not long after that my brother appeared with the missing key. After staring at the door in shock for several moments, my brother left, muttering under his breath about how he’d told Corvus locking me out was a dumb idea. Making a mental note to seal the entrance to the lions' office behind a wall of stone, I had Victoria kick in the smoldering remains of the door. 

While the rest of my team was assigned a four-person room in the living quarters in the higher levels of the encampment, it’d been agreed that my lab’s storage room would be where the team would leave their personal items. Theft between guild members was rare, but occasionally it did happen that a few bad eggs would be recruited, though those eggs were normally weeded out during the probation period. 

The moment I entered the lab, Leo came flying into the room from the sleeping quarters, mewling as he tried to claw his way up my leather trousers. Picking the cub up, I cuddled him close as he rubbed the top of his head over my neck and chin. 

“Aw, he missed you,” Pia cooed, reaching out to scratch the scales underneath the Leosaur’s frill. 

“He’s been really clingy recently.” I mused as I carried the cub back into the bedroom. 

Standing in front of the wall that hid my storage room, I was about to use transmutation to manipulate the glass wall into an archway when I remembered a passage from Trismegistus’s book. 

‘Place thy hand atop my own, oh disciple, let thee guide thy magic in the way.’  The passage had been accompanied by a full page illustration of a robed figure standing before a kneeling child, and the priest's proffered hand was adorned with a sigil that looked exactly like the one on my left hand.

“Kip, come here.” I called out, shifting the Leosaur cub under my right arm, and gesturing the dwarf towards me with my left. 

When the dwarf stood beside me, I placed my palm against the stone wall, and grandly repeated the words I’d read in Trismegistus and the Philosophies of Nature. 

“Place thy hand atop my own, oh disciple, let thee guide thy magic in the way.” I waited expectantly for Kip to put his hand on mine. 

“... Okay, now what?” 

“You’re doing it wrong,” I grumbled, scowling down at the shorter man. 

“Well, how am I s’posed to do it right if I don’t know what we’re doing!” he retorted, pulling back his hand. 

“You’re meant to say something all grand, like I did.” I confidently informed him, shifting my scowl to a giggling Pia. 

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“Guide me, oh, great teacher.” The dwarf called out, conveying both reverence and mockery as he once again pressed his hand against mine. 

Isn’t something supposed to happen? Narrowing my eyes, I stared at our hands pressed to the stone. 

‘You’re meant to actually guide him. As I did you, when first teaching the art of transmutation.’ The amused voice of Trismegistus flowed through my mind, carrying with it just as much mockery as Kip’s had. 

“Okay, so picture the wall changing into an archway, and then push your mana into it, while keeping that image in your head.” I instructed Kip, who creased his brows as he stared at our hands. 

A flare of power passed through our hands, and flowed out towards the wall, which remained unchanged. Something isn’t right, I pondered, biting my lip as I tried to remember what Trismegistus said to me the first time I used transmutation.

“I don’t think this is working.” Kip said, moving to pull his hand away. I need to explain things more clearly, talk him through each step, just as Tris did for me.

“Keep it there,” I told him, and he pressed his hand back to mine.  “Focus on the wall, picture the glass that forms melting away, changing its shape and structure to form an archway. Clear all thought from your mind, all you see is the wall. See it change, feel it change. Glass is an element of earth, formed by fire, and thus it is through these elements you will project your mana. See it change, feel it change, make it change.” I coached, staring down at the dwarf who’d scrunched his eyes closed and pressed his hand firmer against mine. 

A trickle of power passed through Kip's hand into mine, and this time it was sucked up by the sigil on my palm, where it mingled with the elemental mana of fire and earth before flowing outwards into the thick glass wall. All too soon, the flow of power ended, and a panting Kip withdrew his hand. 

“Er, well done?” Staring at the hole in the wall, I found myself a little lost for words. 

“She said make an archway, not a glory hole Kip.” Pia wheezed, clutching at her stomach as she began laughing uproariously. 

‘That 'little' showing is why you started with a vial. Though this one would have struggled even with that. Perhaps a marble? His mana is focused on strengthening his vitality, he has left little for use beyond that,’ Trismegistus lectured, and I nodded, cheeks flushed as I patted a forlorn-looking Kip reassuringly on the back.

‘One down, forty-nine to go.’ I mentally marked the progress with pride, only for the snarky god to shoot down my hopes. 

‘You’ve only guided his first step, not inducted him onto the path.’ 

Pouting, I removed my hand from Kip’s back and placed it against the wall, finishing the task of opening the storage room. Dismissing the god from my thoughts with a mental image of his beard catching on fire, I turned my attention to Kip. 

“You did great, my first transmutation was a very misshapen vial.” I informed him with a bright smile. “I wanted you to move the glass, so I could see how much mana you had, and making a hole requires a little less focus, so I thought it would be easier.”

Kip nodded, looking reassured by my lie as he stroked one side of his braided mustache. 

“I don’t have a lot of mana spare, had little need of it till now,” he admitted. 

“You’ll need to redirect it from strengthening your body to filling your core instead. From what I’ve been told, it is possible to split the flow of power between increasing one's mana core, and their bodies' vitality, but personally I direct all mine to my core.” 

“Glass cannon.” Pia coughed into her hand, but my ears were sensitive enough to hear the Faun’s words, and I glared at her over my shoulder. 

“You come at this glass cannon, and you’d best not miss.” I drawled, flicking a strand of crimson red hair over my shoulder. 

Laughter filled the room as my team set to work gathering their things, and Kip divided up the gold we’d gotten in exchange for our dungeon loot. Seeing the two gold bars the Dwarf offered me, I hesitated to take it. I didn’t need the gold, I was paid well enough by the guild that I could afford anything I might be inclined to buy.  

“Just take it Foxy, it may be a pittance compared to what you earn elsewhere, but a little gold is better than no gold.” Kip said, setting the gold bars down on a shelf when I offered to let them divide my own share amongst themselves. 

“You were the one who found the treasure room, we wouldn’t have earned this much if you didn’t.” Rainy added, tucking away her own gold. 

“So, if there’s no dungeon runs, what are we going to do for the next week? We could go out into the desert and find something big to hunt for points,” Pia queried, looking at Victoria, who shrugged. 

“I’ve got some projects to work on, and Kip will be needing transmutation lessons.” I said, carrying a bedroll out of the storage room and heading for the stone bed. 

“I’d like to spend some time working on some new clothing designs,” Rainy announced. 

“We’ll spend the next two weeks working on our professions,” Victoria decided, and Pia let out a disappointed sigh. 

“Fine,” she grumbled, stomping out of the room like a petulant toddler who’d been told they couldn’t have a cookie.

“When should I come down for those lessons?” Kip asked, as Rainy and Victoria followed Pia out of the lab. 

“I’m going to sleep for a bit, so come back in a few hours. Tell Corvus you’re working with me, and he’ll reassign any tasks you may have been given.” I informed him as I unrolled my bedroll onto the stone slab and grabbed an extra blanket to drape over it. 

Confirming he’d be back after catching up on some sleep himself, Kip left the lab, and I sealed the entrance behind him to keep out any unwanted visitors whilst I slept. Stretching out on the bed, I grimaced at how cold and hard the stone was. Even with the padded mat of my bedroll between my back and the stone, it was far from a comfortable sleeping arrangement. 

After two hours of tossing and turning, I gave up on the idea of sleep in favor of reading. Giving the sleeping Leosaur who was curled up on the bed a jealous look, I grabbed Trismegistus’s book from my bag before returning to the bed. 

Looks like Trismegistus decided to add different versions of real historical alchemists into the lore, I mused as the text began speaking about the grand alchemists and transmuters of the past. Eyeing the full-page portrait of a Kemet priest, who shared his name with my crow, I wondered what races Tris granted the other historical figures, and quickly began flipping through the pages without bothering to read the lists of their achievements. 

At least he left Hennig Brand as a human, I couldn’t picture him as anything else. Turning a page, I let out a little snicker as I saw the illustration showing the famed Belgian scientist Van Helmont depicted as a gnome. I’d have thought elf or perhaps something a little more awe-inspiring would be picked for the man who helped synonymize alchemy and chemistry.

Almost mindlessly turning past dozens of drawings, each depicting different historical figures, I found myself stopping on a page showing a beautiful red haired Kitsune clad in a purple and gold dress. A golden sun crown adorned her head, and nine tails were spread out in a fan behind her body. Heart throbbing in my chest, I stared at the full page illustration as my mind became a chaotic storm of emotion. 

High Priestess Hemera, Temple of Philosophia Naturalis. 

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