The team looked at Ethan after his short but dramatic speech about ‘seeing what the team could do’, then exchanged glances. Finally Savilar spoke. “Is he in charge?” the Rift Hunter asked with a smile.

  “No. He’d get us killed immediately,” Valanor replied, absolutely dead pan.

  “I’m a great leader,” Ethan insisted. “You don’t know.”

  “So what is the plan?” Selina asked, while patting Ethan on the shoulder.

  “We need to see what this team can do,” Valanor said with impressive authority.

  “But that’s–”

  “I agree,” Savilar said, cutting Ethan off. “I saw a Notice for a cancrorum and signed us up. They’re low Dusk rank, and a good fight for testing ourselves against. They’re essentially enormous crabs, and it takes a lot of damage to bring them down, but they aren’t as dangerous as most monsters of their size and rank.”

  Valanor nodded. “A good choice. There’s nothing Dawn rank that would be a real challenge for this group, and a cancrorum should provide something for each of us to do. That said, I’m not ready to rush in.”

  “We should summarize our skill sets and roles,” Ethan suggested.

  “That’s certainly the best place to start,” Valanor agreed, “especially with some of us just having met. I’ll begin.” He brought out his massive shield. “I’m a Vanguard, Broken Dusk. My two Bonds are Obsidian and Steel. I’m nearly unkillable by physical attacks, and I can normally hold the attention of numerous enemies, but because of my…limitation, I can’t provide the debuffs or damage that I normally would.”

  Savilar stepped up next. “My Soul Rune and abilities are a bit out of line, I’m afraid, and it makes me less specialized than I’d like.” Ethan was impressed, both the Dusk rank members were starting by admitting weaknesses. Showing immediate vulnerability set a precedent, encouraging honesty among the team. That actually was impressive leadership.

  Sav continued. “Ultimately I’m best suited to passable sustained damage, or being a substitute Vanguard if needed. My bonds are Holy, Earth, and Sun. I can help control a battlefield and keep Selina safe, but I won’t do the damage that Ethan and Cara will be able to put out.”

  He turned meaningfully to Ethan, who picked up the cue. “Hi I’m Ethan, and I’m an Assassin. I’m still missing my final four abilities, which has left a few gaps in my capabilities, but I can hit hard and fast. My Bonds are Dimension, Mystic and F–fire.” Shit, shit, shit. Cara’s not supposed to know I’m a Chosen. I’ve gotten too used to being around people who do.

  “F-fire?” the Archer asked, and Valanor turned a glare on him.

  I’ll have to figure out how to deal with this later. She’s definitely seen Revan, but he shouldn’t be recognizable. “I get nervous speaking in crowds,” Ethan said. “Anyway, I have some decent survivability, and excellent mobility. But right now it’s much, much easier to deal with a lot of weaker targets. I’m a lot less effective against singular, strong monsters. I’m good at carving out pieces of the big ones, but I’m probably best at dealing with unexpected company.”

  Cara was still looking at him like he was an idiot, but she looked at most people like that. She went next. “Well I’m an Archer, obviously. Also a good scout; spent most of my life in the woods. My Bonds are Nature, Shadow, and Vampire.”

  “Wait,” Ethan interrupted. “Did you say vampire? Are there vampires here?”

  The others exchanged looks. “It’s a type of bat,” Cara said, as if explaining to a child. “Anyway, most of my abilities amount to granting my arrows special abilities. Debuffs, like poisons, and slows, or damage enhancements. The most valuable utility I have comes from the Vampire affinity. It allows me to create a weapon that will make us recover vitality by dealing damage to the monster struck by it.”

  Ethan couldn’t help but look at Valanor and Savilar to see their reaction, but they seemed utterly unconcerned. Where the hell was the line with healing? Once again the Church’s hypocrisy was exposed, but Ethan forcefully pushed away the fury that came with it. Their time will come.

  Savilar spoke up. “You’ll be our best sustained damage, and only consistent ranged attacker. That’s a lot to put on one team member.”

  “I just shoot my arrows,” Cara said with a shrug.

  “I’ll bet you do,” Sav agreed. “Either way, it’s a weakness we may need to account for in the long term. Selina, do you want to finish off the introductions?”

  “Speaking of ‘weakness’ you mean?” she said, looking small despite towering over every person there. “I’m a Rune Mage, which means a broad range of abilities, but with considerable limitations on them. My first real Bond is with Tibby, and grants me the Light Affinity.”

  She perked up then, smiling at the rabbit as it ran around the yard. “Cara helped me unlock a second ability, and I should be more helpful now. Watch!”

  Selina reached out a hard, and a shimmering glow surrounded one of the dummies. Clearly knowing what was expected, Cara moved up and fired a few arrows at it. Each was deflected, dimming the glow considerably.

  Valanor looked curious. “Defensive shield. Excellent but…that seems weaker than I expected?”

  Surprisingly, the Rune Mage grinned. “Exactly right! Most light shields take a lot of mana. They’re basically like mana shields that go around someone else–when they get hit, the mana is used up, and eventually they pop. You have to use them sparingly and carefully, or you’ll exhaust yourself.”

  “But yours are weaker, meaning less mana?” Savilar asked, clearly unconvinced of the value.

  “Sort of!” Selina said proudly. “Yes they’re weaker, which means I can cast more of them, and worry less. But watch this!” She turned her open palm back toward the dummy, and a familiar beam of light blasted out and hit the shield. Rather than breaking it, the light seemed to renew it.

  The group looked at it in surprise, and Selina grinned. “It’s called ‘Shield of Absorbing Light’! It’s more complicated to use, but light sources strengthen it! That means it’s weaker in dark places, stronger in the sun, but most importantly: my own light powers can recharge it!”

  “An excellent ability,” Valanor said, nodding. “Though it will take more skill and thought to use effectively on the battlefield. Still, I look forward to being stabbed less. Good work, Rune Mage.” Selina beamed almost as brightly as her skill had.

  Savilar nodded. “We’re not entirely atypical for a team, though there’s obvious exceptions. But we need to find another Bond for Selina, and fill up as many abilities as we can for her and Ethan. The City is not somewhere you want to try go without every advantage.”

  “As for the broader team, there’s a number of ways we’ll want to prepare,” Valanor said. “Understanding one another in combat is part of it, and that’s just experience. We need to Hunt. A lot. There’s also understanding our own roles, and how they interact with every other individual on the team.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “And all of that is purely internal training,” Sav continued. “Meaning it’s just the surface of what we need to learn without even considering monsters. There’s still every combat scenario to work on, as well specific monster Hunting techniques. Plus if this all goes well, we’ll spend the last few weeks training specifically for the City itself.”

  There was a natural pause as everyone exchanged looks, seeming to measure one another’s resolve. Cara seemed to notice more attention directed at her, and scoffed. “If you think I’m any stranger to training, you don’t know a damned thing about how I got here. Alone.”

  Valanor cleared his throat. “Respectfully, I think the concern is more about your commitment to this endeavor. As you say, we don’t know you well. I’ve seen your skills, but everything else I know about you suggests you’d prefer to continue being alone.”

  Cara seemed less defensive then, and looked to be thinking before she finally answered. “That’s fair. I don’t ask for trust I haven’t earned, only for a real chance to earn it. I’ll tell you this now: I’ve chosen my path. I’m a part of this…very strange team–at least for the duration of the Tournament. As you’ll come to see, once I choose a path, I put everything I have into moving forward.”

  Savilar smiled. “Good enough for me. In that case, here’s our plan. The cancrorum is our first real goal, and we’ll use it as a measuring stick to determine our strengths and weaknesses, but we won’t go after it yet. I don’t want to mistake a basic lack of knowledge for a long term problem. We’ll spend the next few days working together, and gaining a feel for our respective abilities, then get some crab meat.”

  The team was satisfied with that, and began the real work.

  ***

  It was immediately obvious that Selina’s backyard–though it had been a welcome refuge for the team previously–was far too small for their needs. Thankfully there were public training grounds outside the arena for exactly this purpose, and the group made their way over, talking and planning all the while.

  Savilar already had a standing engagement for the Brightsouls, and so they quickly found themselves in a walled off space behind the stone colosseum. It was outside, but relatively private, and contained numerous training supplies. That included an impressively life-like dragon at Dusk rank scale.

  Savilar gestured to it like a salesman. “It’ll simulate injuries, and even remove parts you destroy. Expensive, but highly valuable. Sorry though, Ethan, it won’t prompt your on-kill effects.”

  After exploring the grounds, testing out the weights, and even a small obstacle course, they naturally fell into discussions about how best to work together. Ethan spoke to Cara first.

  “You need specific training to be a scout,” she said flatly. “It’s not enough to just sneak around. You’ll be expected to track monsters, identify ambushes, and help choose favourable terrain. Most importantly, you need to learn to do all that without relying solely on abilities.”

  “I’m not arguing, but why?” Ethan asked.

  “You’re mostly used to Hunting things that aren’t expecting you. Everything changes when that dynamic does. When it comes to monsters, they have senses you can’t always anticipate. Some can smell certain affinities, if you try to sneak up on another illusion-user you’ll be in for a surprise. Others can sense mana being used actively; they’re even more dangerous.”

  “Damn, I hadn’t heard about any of that.”

  Cara scoffed. “That’s this place for you. A whole bloody kingdom of Hunters who are meant for nothing more than standing face to face with monsters, trading blows.” The Archer noticed both Savilar and Valanor looking at her pointedly.

  “Say, Val, how hard do cancrorums hit?” the Rift Hunter asked loudly.

  “Good question, Savilar,” Valanor returned. “I’ve seen them bend steel and smash through rocks. I can only imagine what they’d do to a small elf…hypothetically.”

  “And as noble as that path may be,” Cara said quickly, proving she was cocky but not stupid, “it’s not our role. There are few good scouts around, and unfortunately that means few good teachers as well. We’ll need to work on your skills together.”

  Cara’s training couldn’t start properly right away, as she insisted that a forest was a necessary first step, but she highlighted the high-level skills he’d need to build. Ethan found himself getting excited again. He’d always been invigorated by challenges and self-improvement, and right now, he needed that drive more than ever.

  He soon found himself speaking to Savilar, who gave him even more to consider. “Cara being here changes things for you most of all. Being the only dedicated damage dealer was limited, especially for your particular skill set. You’ll want to consider battle from a different perspective now.”

  “How so?” Ethan asked.

  Savilar moved to the dragon dummy, which had four legs in addition to its wings, as well as a thick tail. He gestured at the creature. “Alone, all you’d be thinking about is staying alive against a monster like this. The damage you’d deal would be done between hopping in and out of stealth, and you’d likely burn through your mana before you got close to a victory.”

  “Can’t argue that,” Ethan agreed. “They call them team-level threats for a reason.”

  “True, and things would change drastically with just the addition of a Vanguard. Suddenly your focus would shift to actually taking the creature down. How would you approach that? Before considering Cara, I mean.”

  Ethan had put a lot of thinking into this before. “Well, with a big target; it’s not going down fast, so the best thing I can do is try to lower its threat level. For that it’s a tactical question of which part can I take down the quickest, compared to its relative threat. Effort versus payoff, essentially.”

  “A wise approach, and the right one. And you’d do this how?”

  “Stabbing?” Ethan replied with a raised eyebrow. “I’d pick a target and go to town on it. I have a number of abilities and synergies, but I sense that’s not what you’re asking.”

  Sav smiled. “Correct, the important part is you’d pick a target and stay with it until it was destroyed. What if there was a second fighter, doing the same thing?”

  Ethan frowned. “It depends? I guess if they’re also attacking ‘parts’ we’d both pick one, try not to get in each other’s way, and be done twice as fast.”

  “Much like you and I did against the thunder drake,” Savilar agreed. “But that’s not really playing to your class’s strength, and I’d say it’s to your credit that you might not immediately see why.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You, Mr. Bishop, should be fighting far more selfishly.” He smiled at Ethan’s confusion. “You’re a strong opener and a strong closer,” Sav continued, “but everything in between is high risk, low reward. Working with a team is different. Watch this. Cara! Target!”

  He didn’t even look at the Archer, but despite being a few dozen paces away and speaking with Valanor, her reaction was almost instantaneous. An arrow seemed to simply appear in the fake dragon’s left wing, a red ribbon tied to it. Savilar grinned. “That’s where she’s going to attack, meaning that’s where you put your own big hits.”

  Ethan looked at the wing. “So we attack together…”

  “Yes and no. Your job is to know where everyone is attacking, and make the right call. You fight selfishly. You have that obliterate move, right? Well, are you really going to make me or Cara keep fighting for another five minutes against a target you could remove instantly?”

  “I suppose not…”

  “And respectfully, are you really going to waste time poking with those little daggers when you could be finding another way to use your strongest attacks? Your Affinity is Ruin, Ethan. You need to focus on Ruining everything you possibly can. Soften our targets with your openers, then get out of there. Obliterate our targets, then move on.”

  “Move on where, though?” Ethan said. “I think I can get used to a style of fighting that boils down to you doing all the dangerous work, but what am I doing between my big hits? It’s not like I don’t have a few abilities to fill the gap.”

  “Mobility fighter,” Savilar said immediately. “If we’re lucky enough to fight one single monster, then you’re right. You’ll have to find ways to contribute, likely more valuable than running away to get back into the shadows. But the reality is rarely so clean. Most fights, especially in the City, will be on more than one front. Valanor will take the big ones, I’ll take the small ones. You move between.”

  Ethan considered. “I think I get it. Basically I keep my cycle by turning the whole battlefield into a single…weirdly shaped monster. I focus on big hits wherever I go, weakening the larger threats, and hopefully eliminating the smaller.”

  “Debilitating, as well,” Savilar corrected. “Even if you can’t eliminate a target, you can make it far less capable of killing me while you hop between targets. Hamstrings, claws, teeth, anything tied to special abilities. Trimming those back will keep us all alive while we do our job.”

  Ethan tried to picture that, and shook his head slightly. “I need to develop an exceptional level of situational awareness to pull that off.” Hydra’s Focus will help a lot, he considered. Finally he smiled. “Looks like I have a lot to keep me busy.”

  “This will keep us all busy,” Savilar said, returning the smile. He was right, and the next few days proved it.