Coffee Talk

A man dressed in luxurious silken pants and little else walked along a newly built wooden dock followed by a retinue of assistants, admirers, and underlings. The assistants crowded around him stammering out their concerns as the others watched and listened.

“Captain Shango, the battleships we salvaged from last month’s naval battle are in working order!” “My lord, our ranks are rested and healed from the encounter with the Calista Pirates. What patrols should we send out today?” “Captain! Captain! I finished your new spear! It should be able to channel up to eighty percent of your maximum output!”

Despite their frantic words, he strolled along the docks happily, taking their words into consideration while he reached out to a nearby cocktail glass. A halo of lightning surrounded its rim and floated the glass into his hand. “Eighty percent? You promised me ninety.”

“You’ve grown since we began to work on it, sir; it came out better than expected as is.” The diminutive scientist backed away in terror as he explained himself, but no punishment came.

“Have I really gotten that much stronger? I guess you don’t notice when you’re already so powerful.” Shango finished his drink, and three of his admirers fought through the crowd behind him, each with a bottle of their own. Two of them began to wrestle, and in the chaos, the third reached him and filled his drink with an ecstatic smile.

“A foreign ship has entered our territory.” Lightning crackled at his temples as he felt a certain wooden ship enter his domain. He turned to his three assistants with a grin. “Deploy the fleet, including the new ships. All hands aboard, save for the reserve. And get me that spear!”

“Lance, stay on deck. John, come with me,” Shelle ordered, turning from her quick friend. Lance threw up his arms and let out a loud groan in mock frustration, but zipped toward the bow to obey his leader.

John followed her below deck, through a small dining room with a long table and into the bedrooms and recreational areas. The hammocks the crew slept in hung from the side walls, and wisps of light hung in each corner, illuminating the room. Shelle sat down in the middle of the room lotus-style.

“Join me. Do you have any experience with the magic of dreams?” Shelle asked, tapping her chin as she held his gaze.

“None. I did use a spell in my sleep once, but it was an accident. Why do you ask? What’re we doing?” John sat across from her, level with her due to their similar height. She shifted toward him, their knees almost touching with how close they were. He dispelled the glamour on his mask and folded it down to his belt.

“Interesting… but not really relevant. The Magician has requested that I train you to handle crisis situations better. Given your history, you’re certainly prone to them, and though you’ve done well enough in the past, you’ve also created more difficulty for yourself in the way you respond to certain scenarios. I’m going to put you to sleep now, do not resist it.” Shelle brought her fingertips to his temples, and before he could make any further comment, sleep overtook him.

He woke up still in the ship, but now Shelle stood in front of him. The wooden walls fell away to reveal a sprawling library, the room bigger than the entire travel hub back in Springfield. “What is this? Where am I?”

“This is a dream. Dream magic is often unstable, but I have plenty of experience. Try to focus on what is instead of what could be, dreams can be distracting if you let them. Most find it incredibly difficult to conjure any magic in their dreams, so it’s interesting you have a little prior experience. A particularly strong will, no doubt. Try it now, use the fast movement ability you used against the sea hag,” Shelle commanded, watching him rise to his feet.

John did as she said, trying to summon the mana for a small Jump. His body tensed up as he anticipated the activation of the ability, but nothing happened. He looked at her, confused, but she merely looked satisfied.

“It makes sense you can’t do it on command without any training. It’s worth looking into, but that’s not what we’re here for. Now, let’s replay the fight from the bar.” Their environment changed as the words left her mouth, from a marble and oak library to the dingy bar he fought Orca’s crew in. They hadn’t come in yet, and instead of Shelle sitting at the bar, it was another woman John had never seen before.

“In this situation, we’ll suppose that I wasn’t there, and instead the bar was full of civilians. Orca is going to come in, and demand **** from the bar that isn’t there. Before I give you advice, I’ll let you play it out again. I’m going to give you the ability to alter the dream in small ways, and this should allow you to use a facsimile of your spells. We’re both adults, so I’m going to trust you to accurately represent yourself and not use any ‘spells’ you do not have. Otherwise, the exercise would be pointless.” Shelle hovered upward, and the ceiling of the bar disappeared to allow her a better view.

John sunk into the shadows as he had in real life, grateful and suspicious that she was able to so easily replicate his equipment. The merpeople invaded and Shelle’s stand-in did not interfere. Orca smashed the cups and plates on the counter as he had in real life, getting angrier and angrier at the meek barmaid before him. John watched and waited for his moment, the pirate crew closing further and further in around the counter. He backed out of the door and Jumped forward, creating an afterimage of himself pointing his gun inside through the door.

When Orca reached to pick the barmaid up by her neck, John shot the back of his head. In a rage, he turned around and charged toward the door and John’s Afterimage, his crew following close behind.

“Very good,” Shelle said, floating back down into the bar, “you took advantage of your strengths to distract them, it’s unlikely for common Abyssals, even in Astraea, to be able to see through invisibility. But now what?”

“I hold them off until you get here?” John asked, looking up at her as she touched down.

“That’s not a terrible idea, but I’m not sure you have the capacity for it. Any King of Swords should be able to take care of enemies like these, but I was supposed to arrive in thirty minutes. That’s a long time to be in battle, especially against many people stronger than you. Let’s try it out,” Shelle waved her hand and they were outside, John invisible and in the doorway to the bar.

You've been pretty quiet, Cinder, what do you think we should have done? After a few moments, John decided she probably couldn't hear him, or else would have commented on everything going on.

John rained a hailstorm of bullets on the crew, Jumping from location to location and sticking to the shadows. The images he left behind were both a blessing and a curse, each distracted an enemy or two but hiding spots diminished as he left image after image behind.

He Jumped behind a few barrels, which exploded into splinters as a clawed fist punched through them. “Got you!”

Not good, John thought, backflipping away from the fake Orca and sending a few small Mana Bolts his way as a distraction. John dodged out of the way as a crewmate charged toward him, using Magic Rope to tie his legs together. The stronger opponent fell into the water, though many more remained.

He made to Jump away from his revealed location, but a large pair of jaws snapped on his head, killing him if not for the harmless ‘reality’ they were in.

At his insistence they ran through the scenario dozens of times, and though by the end he could last a good twenty minutes, he also knew it was only because he had learned how to better fight these enemies. I won’t get prep time like this in the future.

He pounded the deck hard enough to make his real hands bleed as his enemies faded away. “I’m not strong enough.”

“No. You’re not.” Shelle appeared once again beside him, and his cheeks flushed; she had seen every detail of his failure. “You have no need to be, either. You’re not expected to be the most powerful mage in each country or Kingdom you visit. In this case, it would be prudent to retreat. There is no shame in retreating. All of us have our limits. Each guild base is a safehouse. Not only to those who live there, but to any active member. Instead of keeping the fight here, utilize your superior agility and tactics to lead the battle to our nearby base. Though this does not put us above the law, and if you are accused of a serious crime, the guild will hold you accountable.”

That’s good to know. That was probably in the handbook, John thought, reflecting on when he had been in a crisis prior. Rarely had it been so close to home, but he felt a little more at ease with his dangerous work. “What’s next?”

“I’m going to run you through a series of common misfortunes that happen in our line of work, and advise you on how best to proceed. We have a lot more time in a dream than we would in a barrier,” Shelle said as the environment changed around him, turning into a cloudy sky. John’s eyes widened as the ground disappeared beneath him. “Ever fallen from a great height?”