Team Meeting

As Beth weaved around the troop of plant people, easily avoiding their lashing attacks but unable to find an opening as they kept up a constant ****, John’s attention drifted to the small glass vial that glinted in the replicated afternoon light.

“Well, that’s a bit weird,” he muttered, catching the attention of his girls. “That vine man dropped a piece of loot.”

“You’ve got loot from things we beat separately,” Aeolia said. “It’s how we ended up swimming in those rune ball things.”

“Glyph Sphere,” John corrected. “And since you two are linked to my powers, it makes sense that your kills are counted as if I helped, even if we’re at opposite sides of the barrier. But I figured since Beth isn’t a part of the party, experience and loot wouldn’t drop. And I was half right. No EXP but got a piece of loot.”

“You didn’t get anything from those two hounds I killed by myself, right?” Aeolia asked.

“No, but I did get reduced experience from helping you take out the alpha,” John recalled. “So I figure that if I have no hand in beating something, I get no EXP but a chance at the loot. Might be a good way to grind stuff and have people get some training in.”

John willed the wind spirit into view, the ball of verdant gusts flying over to the glinting vial. Its twisting breezes picked up the small tube of chalky liquid and John felt it jostle about as he directed the spirit’s return. It vanished back into his aura, dropping the vial into his outstretched left hand.

“That’s what Mason taught you?” Aeolia questioned as John turned the small item over in his hand.

“Yeah,” John answered. “Been pretty useful. I can boost my Agility with it. That’s what gave me the edge in proving our worth to the goblin elders.”

“Kind of messed up that they had you fight after we helped them beat that tree monster,” Aeolia complained absentmindedly, her eyes tracing Beth’s movements. “We really should keep focused on the fight. She’s not as bad as I thought. That pinning move was pretty good.”

Vivian nodded, still pressed into John’s side. “It was. Being able to restrict something’s movement could be very useful. It’s certainly more convenient than the binding array I can write or your knife’s power.”

“Looks like she has to touch something to make it work though,” Aeolia pointed out as Beth tried to stick a vine man’s extended arm by stomping her foot down again. It was a futile effort as she was **** to hop awkwardly away from another attack.

“I wonder if she could make the ground slippery,” John theorized. “Or if she can only make things sticky.”

“Maybe we should have inquired about the range of her abilities before starting a practical examination,” Vivian brought up. “Tailored this test to better suit what she can do.”

Aeolia shook her head. “We won’t always get the best places to fight. I think it’s better to see how people fight in less than perfect situations to detect their flaws. And if they can adapt.”

The squelching sound of torn vines signaled Beth scoring a hit, this one ripping cleanly through her target’s arm. The torn strands twitched and began to regrow, slowly beginning to reform.

“She really needs a better weapon though,” Aeolia added. “The flexibility is nice, but the small size and weird shape make it hard to land good hits. I think if she had a knife attached to the string, she could do more and she could use it normally in a close up fight if she had to.”

“There’s probably something in the yo-yo that makes it safe for her to just grab it the way she does,” John said, watching as Beth recalled her weapon, the ring blades slamming into her hand with no injury. “Same for the control over the string. I should have Observed it before I gave it back to her. I just grabbed it before school in case I had the chance to return it.”

“You can give it a once over after she beats them,” Aeolia remarked as Beth continued her standoff. Unlike their first encounter with her, she was faring better, managing to inflict a number of shallow wounds. Wounds that the vine men’s innate regeneration were healing away.

“Anything stick out to you two about how she could improve?” Aeolia asked her lovers.

“Well,” Vivian began, “I think we’ll need to get a more comprehensive idea of her abilities before we dive into any deep critiques. If you looked at my abilities before meeting you two, would you have accepted me solely on what I could do in a hastily put together combat trial?”

A sour look crossed Aeolia’s face and she shook her head. “Honestly, given my mindset right after, I might not have. Think we should just off the little green men and bounce back to the office for a more formal meeting?”

“I won’t say no to some EXP,” John said. “After getting the reward for the Order thing, I’m like 80 away from a level up. These guys probably won’t give them, but every little bit helps.”

Vivian slowly pulled herself from John’s embrace, clearly **** to do so, and brought a hand to her choker. “Suppose this is a good time to show off some of my work.”

She pulled out a Glyph Sphere from her personal space, its surface covered in a complex web of lines and symbols.

“What’s the programm?” John asked, deferring to Vivian’s explanation over using Observe.

“This is a modification of the binding array I used against the machine boss,” the redhead explained. “It should prevent anything from trying to move within its range, except for me at the moment. I couldn’t work in a more effective sequence to recognize more mana signatures to exclude.”

“What’s the range?” Aeolia asked.

“About ten meters across,” Vivian informed them. “The only problem with the current design is that it’ll stop anybody but me from moving freely. I can re-code it for someone else, but it would require dispersing all the mana charging it and the person wanting to be immune to it charging it up.”

“Do you think I can navigate my wind spirit or a fireball through the paralysis field?” John inquired, watching the stalemate continue. Beth’s athleticism was evenly matched by the vine men’s swarm tactics and regeneration, but she was starting to slow down ever so slightly, if her attempts to keep her distance from them was an indicator.

“That,” Vivian began, then frowned as she considered that possibility. “That could work. I worked the detection array to react to active mana sources and a spell like your fireball might fall below that threshold. Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work and I have to either haul Beth out of there myself or borrow a weapon and take care of the vine men.”

“Or I can fly the sphere over while you make it look like she’s over somewhere else,” Aeolia said. “No need to over complicate things. Hell, we don’t really need the freeze orb. Just displace Beth’s image then me and John can mow them down.”

“Oh,” Vivian softly exclaimed, her face crestfallen. “Right. Sorry, guess I got a little carried away.”

Aeolia’s face twisted with guilt as Vivian’s mood dampened and she let out a sigh. “I suppose this is a good time to test it, though. Get them to target a fake Beth, we freeze them and test if our attacks get messed up by it.”

That solution perked Vivian up. “Really? Alright. Here, take it. The activation is this glyph right here on the top. Just send a bit of mana in and it’ll activate in five seconds. Just, don’t get caught in its range. Don’t want you to fall out of the air.”

“Right,” Aeolia said, taking the orb. “You do the ol’ smoke and mirrors trick and I’ll tell Beth to stay still while the plant guys head over to her copy.”

Aeolia took off and flew the short distance over to Beth, shrinking as she did. John and Vivian followed, both readying themselves in case things went sideways. Beth’s attack pattern had caused the vine men to array themselves in a crescent formation across from her, cautiously approaching. Vivian lifted a hand and screwed her face in concentration as Beth cracked her arm back to attack, only to pause her attack when the vine men began to look around.

“Over here, you overgrown houseplants,” Aeolia drew their attention before looking towards Beth, the short statured woman’s attention jerking towards her. “And you stay still. Vi’s making them think you're below me.”

“What?” Beth asked through slightly labored breaths. “I can still fight!”

“Can, yes,” John said as he drew close to her. “Need to? Well, you proved yourself to Aeolia, so there’s no real point in all this.”

Beth looked a bit miffed that her fight was being taken from her so John added, “Once we rest up and do some strategy stuff, we can tackle another Barrier. We do have to figure out working as a team.”

Beth opened her mouth, and John was sure she was going to complain, but she clenched her jaw shut and nodded. She watched as the vine men drew close to her illusory doppelganger as Aeolia circled high enough to evade any of their attacks. They seemed content to focus on the projected image of their original target and began to lash their arms out, passing harmlessly through the hologram.

They stopped after a few missed hits, seemingly confused as to why their attacks were useless. Aeolia used the opening to drop the Glyph Sphere, growing back to full size right before it hit the ground. There was no sign that it activated, but suddenly all of the vine men froze.

“Okay, that is a neat trick,” Beth admitted as she followed John and Vivian towards the paralysed vine men. “How’d you do that?”

Vivian smiled at the shorter girl. “I’m a fair hand at spell arrays. The thing Aeolia dropped was inscribed with one that’s imparting **** on them in all directions, locking them in place. Though I’m not too sure on how long it’s going to last.”

John focused his attention on the paralysis field, letting Arcane Sense activate. He felt the dome of Vivian’s magic flare to life, warm as he’s come to expect her workings to feel, but more rigid compared to the radiating warmth emanating from her.

‘I can Observe magic I can sense, right?’ John thought, calling up Arcane Sense’s sheet.

Finding his recollection correct, John cast Observe on Vivian’s piece of spellcraft.

Paralysis Field
A sphere of paralytic magic ten meters in diameter.
Consumes 1 mana from Glyph Sphere every 5 seconds.
Stronger or more numerous beings affected may increase the rate of mana drain.
45/50 Mana charge remaining

Skill Level Up: Observe Lv. 7.

“Looks like your spell’s going to run for about four minutes,” John said to Vivian, prompting her to look at the displayed sheet.

Beth looked at the two and then to what to her was empty space, a perplexed look on her face.

“Um, what are you guys looking at?” she asked.

John and Vivian shared a look as John dismissed the display. “We’ll explain later. It’s a bit of a long one,” he said. “Anyway, we have to knock these guys out before we leave. Wind or fire?”

“Let’s see if your fireball can move in,” Vivian answered. “I’ll keep an eye on the spell to see what happens if it can’t. That way I can see if the array can be adjusted.”

“Right,” John said, opening his inventory and equipping his glove. He caught Beth blink in surprise as the glove manifested on his left hand. “Going to go with the fire enhanced one, so be ready for the big boom.”

John channeled some of his mana into the glove, converting it into pure fire mana, immediately casting Fiery Pursuit. The large fireball flared to life above his upturned palm and he willed it towards the frozen vine men. The sphere of flame reached the edge of the paralysis field and slipped past the perimeter.

“Think the Glyph Sphere’s going to be able to tank the hit?” John asked Vivian as he moved the fireball as close to the center of the vine men as possible.

“It’s not like it’ll be a big loss if this one bites it,” Aeolia remarked, landing on Vivian’s shoulder.

“True, but I’ll have to rewrite the whole thing,” Vivian complained. “But it would be nice to know if they can survive the blast.”

“So time for the kaboom?” John asked with a smirk.

“Fire away,” Vivian answered.

John let the fireball’s contained energy free, a wave of fire easily covering all of the immoblie vine men.

37(2) EXP Gained
EXP Reduced due to non-party member assistance.

All hostile entities defeated. Barrier will repopulate in five minutes.

John could still feel Vivian’s magic as the fire and smoke faded and he smiled back at her.

“Looks like the sphere can handle at least one blast,” he reported. “Field’s still up.”

“That was different than what you did to those rodents,” Beth said as she moved to examine the blast site.

“Upgraded my kit,” John explained briefly. “I’ll go over everything when we get back to the office. Just need to wait out the paralysis field. That was the last of them.”

Beth peered into the space and frowned when something glinted in the light, catching her eye.

“Where the hell did those come from?”

“So your powers make you a goddamn video game character?” Beth asked after John gave her the rundown on his abilities once they had retreated to Vivian’s. They sat around her kitchen table, refreshments in hand.

“Yep,” John said, extracting one of the Vine Juice vials. “XP, loot drops, points I can spend to boost my stats, a party system, quests, the works.”

“Sounds like you got a really complicated power set,” the dark haired girl said before she took a sip of her cola. “Must be a bitch to keep all those moving parts in mind. Me, I just need to pour the right amount of mana into something to make it stick or slick.”

“So you can reduce somethings friction,” Vivian cut in, her excitement in uncovering more of their new companion’s ability evident.

“Yep,” Beth said. “Making things stick is easier, though.”

“Makes sense,” the redhead muttered, her head nodding slightly. “Adding to inherent friction would be easier than reducing it.”

“If you say so,” Beth murmured with a shrug. Her opened uniform blouse, readorned after leaving the barrier, slipped a little off her shoulder. “Never really thought about it. I could crawl up walls almost right after I would walk. Fell right off them, but that taught me to land on my feet.”

“A good lesson to learn,” Aoelia chimed in. “Tumbled quite a bit before I got the handle of flying.”

“Cheers,” Beth said to Aeolia, lifting her cup towards her. Aeolia smirked and the two clanked drinking vessels. Beth took another swig and turned her attention back to John. “So, what exactly can you do with your swiss army knife bullshit? All I’ve seen you do is shoot fireballs of various sizes.”

“Well, I guess that is my best ranged attack,” John remarked, “but the core of my powers, beyond the generic game stuff, is being able to draw out unique effects from stuff. If you or anybody else had my gear, you wouldn’t be able to do what I can do with it.”

To prove his point, he withdrew his glove.

“Try to cast the fireball,” he said, passing it to Beth.

Beth smirked. “Don’t go blaming me for burning down the place. Thing’s pretty warm. Got a heater in your inventory?”

John only smiled at her as Beth slipped the glove on, concentration etched on her face as she tried to cast the Evocation. John let Arcane Sense activate, curious about how someone’s mana would interact with his gear. Threads of Beth’s mana flowed into the glove, which radiated like an oven. Beyond that heat was a pulsing core that gave John the impression of a volcano waiting to erupt.

‘That must be the Evocation,’ John reasoned as Beth’s mana seemed unable to reach it, flowing through the rest of the glove with ease. Then some of the strands of her mana began to grow hot and flow back towards her, though still cooler than the glove itself.

“Shit, that’s hot!” she half shouted, dropping the glove reflexively. “You could have warned me it’d heat up my mana.”

“Are you ok?” John asked, concern etched onto his face. He hadn’t thought that the fire mana conversion ability of the glove would elicit such a reaction, the times he’d used it only warmed him.

“I’ll be fine,” Beth seetheed. “Just feels really uncomfortable. Got to bleed this off.”

She placed her hands flat on the table and John felt her heated mana flow into it. Letting out a sigh, Beth slumped further down into her seat.

“Well, that sucked,” she summed up.

John picked up his glove, eyeing it carefully. He ran three mana into it, the single point of fire mana flowing back into him as it usually did. He burned it off casting Observe on a few of the nearby, perfectly boring items.

“It works the same as it usually does,” John reported, casting a nervous glance to Aeolia and Vivian. “You think there’s something about my stuff that makes it so others can’t use it?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Vivian replied. “I used the Glyph Sphere just fine.”

“And those goggles of yours worked just fine for me,” Aeolia commented.

“Wait,” Vivian interjected, her eyes widening as an idea crossed her mind. “Those goggles let you see auras, right?”

“Yeah,” John answered. “You want to see if you can make out what happened with the conversion?”

Beth vehemently shook her head. “I’d like to not feel like I’ve got lava running through me.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Vivian assured her. “But I want to examine your aura. The makeup of your mana might be why you had such an adverse reaction.”

“As long as it’s not going to boil me, I’m game,” Beth replied.

“Good thing I made that one of my go-to on-hand items,” John said, as he pulled the Tinker’s Goggles out and passed them to Vivian. The redhead slipped them on, placing her glasses on the table, and looked at Beth, the dark haired girl deciding to pose, flashing Vivian a peace sign.

“I thought that could be the case,” Vivian said. “If I’m interpreting things right, there’s a fair amount of water in Beth’s mana. It would react poorly to being converted into fire and introduced back into her mana flow.”

“What do you mean by that?” John asked as Beth looked somewhat annoyed by the prognosis.

“Well,” Vivian explained, “people’s mana can be solely one element, like Aoelia’s being wholly wind or mine being light based. But they can also be a mix. From the looks of it, Beth’s appears to be about forty percent wind, thirty water and thirty dark. Honestly, that composition makes sense considering the nature of her ability.”

“Does it?” Beth inquired, actually looking interested in understanding her power.

Vivian slipped the goggles up off her eyes. “This is just a quick spitball sort of observation, but I figure the wind actually breaks down more into something like static electricity, you know for the clinginess. The water could relate to cohesion, how water sticks to itself and dark mana inherently has attractive properties.”

Beth frowned as she mulled over Vivian’s breakdown of her ability, idly picking up a coaster with a finger.

“Never really thought about how this worked,” she said introspectively. “Just that it came as easy as breathing and that it was mine. Even with my sister trying to lock me down, I always could use my magic.”

She sighed, letting the coaster drop back to the table, scratching her right wrist. “Ok, I really don’t want to think about stuff any more. So, what’s our next step?”

“Actually,” Vivian said, “there’s something I want to ask you. I hope you don't mind me prying, but what is the enchantment around your wrist?"

Thanks again for reading this little story. If you liked the chapter, please hit that thumbs up, and if you want to support my writing, check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ScrapCrow. Get access to my chapters before they’re published here and join my private Discord.