The adventurer led Tibs to the largest of the recently finished buildings, keeping a firm hand on his arm after noticing he’d begun trailing. Tibs had tried to act as if his injuries were the cause, but the adventurer hadn’t cared.
Inside the building’s door, he waved down another adventurer. “He needs to see Tirania. He passed the first test.”
She looked Tibs over. “You sure? He looks young.”
The man offered Tibs the crystal, and he just looked at it. He’d wanted to lose himself in locks and traps, stop thinking for the rest of the morning at least. He’d wanted to be alone.
With a curse, the man grabbed Tibs’s hand and put the crystal in it. He let go as it began glowing and Tibs let his hand drop, the crystal bouncing on the wooden floor.
“Maybe he should come back later,” the woman said. “He doesn’t look in a state to speak with the guild leader.”
“Hey, my orders are that anyone who makes the crystal glow is brought to see her. You want to send him out and have to look for him later, that’s your decision. If you want them to be less traumatized, maybe you should change the orders.” The man gave Tibs a light shove in her direction and walked out of the building.
Tibs steadied himself before running into her and remained there.
She let out a sigh. “I can’t wait for the real guards to get here.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “But he does have a point. If we waited for you to come back on your own, you’d probably die before that happened.” She was more gentle with her directions, but she led Tibs deeper into the building and up stairs until they stood by a door on which she knocked.
“Enter.”
They stepped into a large room and a woman with black hair sat behind a desk, looking up from a stack of papers. Because her hair was braided and over her shoulder, instead of loose, it took a few seconds to recognize her, even with her strange eyes. She was the woman who had spoken to all the rogues on the first day, she was the one who’d given them the title of rogue.
“He graduated, Ma’am.”
Tirania smiled. “Another one, good.” She motioned to the chair, and when Tibs didn’t move, his escort guided him to it.
“I’m afraid he’s a little out of sorts,” his escort said. “The Downgraded that brought him suggested that it might be better if we give them some time to recuperate for their exploration before bringing them to you.”
Tirania waved the suggestion aside. “We’re forming adventurers, not scholars. If they survive, they’ll learn to deal with it. You can leave.”
The door closed, and the woman settled her strangely colored eyes on him. Tibs tried to figure out what colors they were, and he saw that they shifted as if the position of her eyes and head affected which set of colors were visible.
She moved and reflexively he shifted his gaze as she pulled a small vial from a drawer and offered it to him. The liquid was gray and shimmered slightly. He took it and removed the stopper, sniffing the content. It didn’t have a scent.
“It’s a healing potion,” she said. “You don’t look in that bad of a shape, but it’ll also calm your nerves.”
Tibs looked at it again. It was nothing like those he got at the training grounds. The liquid in those tended more toward green than gray, and the vials were larger. He considered putting the stopper back on and returning it, but if she wanted him poisoned, they were working too hard at it.
He prepared himself for the tastes and downed the content quickly. Instead of tasting like it should be poison, it was sweet. The tastes didn’t stay on his tongue long, but while it was there, it reminded him of the one time he’d stolen an orange, but without the bad taste of the peel.
She smiled at him. “That’s the good stuff. Not the apprentice’s near failure you get handed outside.”
Tibs realized he felt better, not just physically, but even Talia’s death didn’t hurt as much. As if she’d died weeks ago, instead of only hours. If they used that on the training ground, everyone would learn much faster, he thought.
She chuckled and motioned for him to return the vial. “Trust me, if those potions were in any way affordable, we’d make sure all of you used them. Unfortunately, one of these takes years to make.”
“Did you hear my mind?” he asked, worried she would see more, find out about Mama.
She laughed. “No, that’s not my element, and even for someone with it, reading a mind isn’t easy. You’re simply not the first one to get that look of wonder after drinking one of these; and wondering why we don’t use those instead of the ones the trainers hand you. The guild is wealthy, but even we have limits.”
Tibs nodded and settled in the chair. He was less worried. Maybe he was still in trouble, but if she was planning on cutting off his hand, she wouldn’t have wasted good coin on him like that.
“Now, do you know why you’re here?”
“I passed a test, but I don’t know what that means.”
She took something out of a pocket and lobbed it at him. He caught the crystal, which glowed in his hand. It was larger, almost the size of his thumb, and the cuts were cleaner. Without the glow, he’d think it was a piece of cut glass, like what scammers used to make fake jewelry. He tried to understand how it glowed. The light came from the center, but he couldn’t make out anything there. Magic, then?
“What’s your name?” She motioned for the crystal back and he gave it.
“Tibs.”
“Do you have a patronym to add?” she asked. “Some grand lineage to impress everyone with?”
He shrugged. “I’m just Tibs. I’m from the streets.”
She nodded. “Well, Tibs from the street, when this crystal glows, it indicates you have graduated. You were Omega when you arrived.” He waited and her eyes narrowed slightly. “You do know what that means.”
He shook his head.
“That makes sense because it means you were nothing. You didn’t matter to anyone; not society and not the world. You were going to die in the dungeon and that was going to be the entirety of your contribution.” She smiled. “But you defied those odds. You survived. You fought what the dungeon threw at you, you bested its traps. You hardened your mind and your body.” She paused. “Well, your body and your spirit at least, and through that, you graduate from Omega to Upsilon.” She looked at him expectantly and he simply waited. “What that means is that you’re still nothing, but you’re now ready to choose the element you want to wield, and if you’re lucky, that element will accept you and you’ll survive making the choice.”
Tibs tried to figure out what she’d said. He didn’t feel any harder, the one thing he did catch was the one that made no sense to him. “I thought only sorcerers used elements.”
“A common misconception,” she said, waving his comment aside. “Every adventurer wields an element. The sorcerers at just more overt about it. The rest of us are smarter about how we use them.” She leaned back in her chair. “Now, what element do you want?”
Tibs didn’t answer, thinking back on his first day, when he saw an adventurer cover a beggar’s hand with ice and break it off. Was that how he’d done it? Using an element? “What are they?” he asked when he felt her expectant gaze on him.
She frowned. “You have to know. Water, fire, air, and earth.”
Tibs nodded, then frowned. Hadn’t she referred to mind as an element earlier? “Are there others?”
Her smile was small. “Of course. Plenty more, like metal, wood, darkness, but you don’t want one of those. For someone like you, one of the core elements is best.”
“Why?” Tibs couldn’t see how air was better than metal. Weapons were made of metal so that would let them control them, right? He could keep from getting hurt by them, it would make him unstoppable.
“The simplest answer,” she said after studying him for a few seconds, “is that the core elements don’t require any previous training to start using.”
Tibs frowned. He couldn’t see how that made sense. How could elements require training before you had them? How could you train something until you had it?
“Let me explain it this way,” she said. “When you have an element, you also have a reserve. Think of it as how much you can use that element before getting tired, like how much you can run before having to rest. The core elements are all around us. So your reserve will recharge by itself even without you doing anything. You can help it by going someplace where it’s more abundant, like standing next to a fire, but just standing in the street, your reserve will slowly refill. Do you understand that much?”
Tibs nodded, if it was a question of having to find places where there was more of an element, he could see how the core elements were more practical.
“Now with the other elements, you either have to be around them, or know how to actively pull them out of what’s around you. That’s what requires training. If you don’t have it, you won’t be able to do anything with the element. If you’ve planned ahead, you can manage without that training. For example, if you chose wood because you know that you’re going to live an adventure in forests or jungles, then you can survive until then. It’s going to be much harder because you’re going to have to go through Upsilon while barely being able to refill your reserves, but it can be done. When you’re in your forest, then it’ll be easier. So if you’re going to pick one of the other elements, you need to have planned ahead, and let’s be honest, you don’t seem the type to have done a lot of planning.”
He nodded, ignoring the condescending way she’d said those last things. “How do I know which is best for me?”
“What do you plan to do with it?”
Survive, was his first thought, immediately followed by images of hurting the men who’d hurt him, who’d hurt Mama. Making them suffer for taking her from him. He bit his lower lip. He knew what she’d say if he told her that. What she’d think of him. She’d see him as no better than the adventurers who guarded the town. This was about making him into an adventurer, and even on the street, he’d heard the bards sing the stories. They protected people. They went out and killed monsters. They didn’t hurt people.
“I want to be able to protect myself,” then added, “and for others to stop dying.”
She nodded. “For that, you have two main options. Earth and water. Earth stands for solidity, immovability. Those with that element stand between people and their enemies, taking the hits for them and hitting hard in return.”
Tibs looked at himself; his short frame, small hands, then back at her.
“Not really a good fit for you, is it?” She smiled. “Water, on the other hand, is about flexibility, adaptability. It looks soft and pliant, comforting, but it can be hard, smothering. Properly wielded, water can be a wall that will stop even the most determined warrior, and that’s used by someone who has no creativity.”
Tibs nodded. He liked the way she implied he could do more with it. He thought about fire and air, but he could see how fire was mainly about destroying things, and air… he needed to think harder about that one, but he realized air was what they breathed. So it would be mainly about suffocating others. He liked how both would hurt, but what would she think of him for picking them?
“Water,” he answered, deciding to be safe, and counting on being able to think of ways to use it to get what he wanted.
She smiled at him. “Very good choice.” She tapped something out of sight on her side of the desk and leaned back in her chair.
When nothing happened after a minute, Tibs looked around. “What happens now?”
“Now we have to wait for the man I summoned to arrive. He’ll be who takes you to your audience with Water.”
Tibs had thought it would just happen. An audience meant meeting someone. Would he have to convince that man he deserved water as an element? What happened if he decided Tibs was good enough? Tibs considered asking Tirania, but what if she decided he wasn’t confident enough to merit an element at all? How long would it take for that man to arrive? Did she expect him to be silent the whole time?
“What happens afterward?” he asked. “Someone said that if we survive the dungeon long enough, we can go free.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Go back to the street? To picking pockets and stealing heirlooms?”
Tibs shrugged. What else did he have to go back to, other than his plans? And he wasn’t going to mention those to her, or anyone else.
She sighed. “Epsilon is when you’ll be acknowledged as an adventurer. You’ll have paid your due to the guild by working the dungeon or doing tasks for us. There’s more than one way to reach that level, although yours is most likely the dungeon.”
Tibs nodded, then stopped. “Didn’t you say I’m epsilon now?”
“Upsilon is where you are,” she answered, pronouncing the word slower. “Epsilon is where you will get the freedom you want.”
He nodded, hearing the difference, as slight as it was. “How far is that?”
She shook her head sadly. “You really know nothing of the world, do you?”
“On the street, the only time I’ve encountered the world is when city guards sweep it because a noble was passing by. They don’t spend a lot of time answering questions when they’re kicking you into hiding so the visitor won’t have to acknowledge we exist.” Tibs noticed the anger in his voice, his arms crossed over his chest, and forced them down.
She chuckled. “Don’t ask a guard about the world, all you’ll get are legends and misconceptions. But I get your point. The world you come from didn’t lend itself to learning the intricacies of power.” She steepled her fingers before her. “There are ten levels of power. You were Omega. Everyone alive starts there, but we only assign it to those seeking to become adventurers since those are the only ones who have a chance to graduate to the higher ones.”
“No one else can do it?”
“Exceptional people can,” She answered, “but let’s not get distracted. This is about you, and if not for the opportunity a new dungeon gave you, you wouldn’t even be considered Omega. Once you’re allowed to travel, you’ll find that different societies have different words for what I’m explaining, but the guild enforces standard terms to avoid confusion. Alright?”
Tibs nodded so she’d continue, even if he wasn’t sure what she meant.
“Each level is progressively more difficult to reach and requires a combination of hardening your body, your mind, and your spirit as well as learning how to harness your element. Each level with your element will grant you abilities primarily dictated by it, but how you train can influence that. As an example, as a rogue with water for an element, you could train to use it to become more difficult to be struck, or to shape it into a knife so you will always be armed. Maybe you’ll seek something more rogue-like and train yourself to use water so you can enter places more easily. Or you’ll internalize your element. As I said, in the end, a lot of what you’ll be able to do depends on how you train.”
Tibs nodded and opened his mouth to ask again how far he had to go before reaching epsilon, but the door opened.
“It’s about time, Alistair,” She said, her tone severe. “I was starting to think you thought you were too good to answer a summons.”
The adventurer led Tibs to the largest of the recently finished buildings, keeping a firm hand on his arm after noticing he’d begun trailing. Tibs had tried to act as if his injuries were the cause, but the adventurer hadn’t cared.
Inside the building’s door, he waved down another adventurer. “He needs to see Tirania. He passed the first test.”
She looked Tibs over. “You sure? He looks young.”
The man offered Tibs the crystal, and he just looked at it. He’d wanted to lose himself in locks and traps, stop thinking for the rest of the morning at least. He’d wanted to be alone.
With a curse, the man grabbed Tibs’s hand and put the crystal in it. He let go as it began glowing and Tibs let his hand drop, the crystal bouncing on the wooden floor.
“Maybe he should come back later,” the woman said. “He doesn’t look in a state to speak with the guild leader.”
“Hey, my orders are that anyone who makes the crystal glow is brought to see her. You want to send him out and have to look for him later, that’s your decision. If you want them to be less traumatized, maybe you should change the orders.” The man gave Tibs a light shove in her direction and walked out of the building.
Tibs steadied himself before running into her and remained there.
She let out a sigh. “I can’t wait for the real guards to get here.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “But he does have a point. If we waited for you to come back on your own, you’d probably die before that happened.” She was more gentle with her directions, but she led Tibs deeper into the building and up stairs until they stood by a door on which she knocked.
“Enter.”
They stepped into a large room and a woman with black hair sat behind a desk, looking up from a stack of papers. Because her hair was braided and over her shoulder, instead of loose, it took a few seconds to recognize her, even with her strange eyes. She was the woman who had spoken to all the rogues on the first day, she was the one who’d given them the title of rogue.
“He graduated, Ma’am.”
Tirania smiled. “Another one, good.” She motioned to the chair, and when Tibs didn’t move, his escort guided him to it.
“I’m afraid he’s a little out of sorts,” his escort said. “The Downgraded that brought him suggested that it might be better if we give them some time to recuperate for their exploration before bringing them to you.”
Tirania waved the suggestion aside. “We’re forming adventurers, not scholars. If they survive, they’ll learn to deal with it. You can leave.”
The door closed, and the woman settled her strangely colored eyes on him. Tibs tried to figure out what colors they were, and he saw that they shifted as if the position of her eyes and head affected which set of colors were visible.
She moved and reflexively he shifted his gaze as she pulled a small vial from a drawer and offered it to him. The liquid was gray and shimmered slightly. He took it and removed the stopper, sniffing the content. It didn’t have a scent.
“It’s a healing potion,” she said. “You don’t look in that bad of a shape, but it’ll also calm your nerves.”
Tibs looked at it again. It was nothing like those he got at the training grounds. The liquid in those tended more toward green than gray, and the vials were larger. He considered putting the stopper back on and returning it, but if she wanted him poisoned, they were working too hard at it.
He prepared himself for the tastes and downed the content quickly. Instead of tasting like it should be poison, it was sweet. The tastes didn’t stay on his tongue long, but while it was there, it reminded him of the one time he’d stolen an orange, but without the bad taste of the peel.
She smiled at him. “That’s the good stuff. Not the apprentice’s near failure you get handed outside.”
Tibs realized he felt better, not just physically, but even Talia’s death didn’t hurt as much. As if she’d died weeks ago, instead of only hours. If they used that on the training ground, everyone would learn much faster, he thought.
She chuckled and motioned for him to return the vial. “Trust me, if those potions were in any way affordable, we’d make sure all of you used them. Unfortunately, one of these takes years to make.”
“Did you hear my mind?” he asked, worried she would see more, find out about Mama.
She laughed. “No, that’s not my element, and even for someone with it, reading a mind isn’t easy. You’re simply not the first one to get that look of wonder after drinking one of these; and wondering why we don’t use those instead of the ones the trainers hand you. The guild is wealthy, but even we have limits.”
Tibs nodded and settled in the chair. He was less worried. Maybe he was still in trouble, but if she was planning on cutting off his hand, she wouldn’t have wasted good coin on him like that.
“Now, do you know why you’re here?”
“I passed a test, but I don’t know what that means.”
She took something out of a pocket and lobbed it at him. He caught the crystal, which glowed in his hand. It was larger, almost the size of his thumb, and the cuts were cleaner. Without the glow, he’d think it was a piece of cut glass, like what scammers used to make fake jewelry. He tried to understand how it glowed. The light came from the center, but he couldn’t make out anything there. Magic, then?
“What’s your name?” She motioned for the crystal back and he gave it.
“Tibs.”
“Do you have a patronym to add?” she asked. “Some grand lineage to impress everyone with?”
He shrugged. “I’m just Tibs. I’m from the streets.”
She nodded. “Well, Tibs from the street, when this crystal glows, it indicates you have graduated. You were Omega when you arrived.” He waited and her eyes narrowed slightly. “You do know what that means.”
He shook his head.
“That makes sense because it means you were nothing. You didn’t matter to anyone; not society and not the world. You were going to die in the dungeon and that was going to be the entirety of your contribution.” She smiled. “But you defied those odds. You survived. You fought what the dungeon threw at you, you bested its traps. You hardened your mind and your body.” She paused. “Well, your body and your spirit at least, and through that, you graduate from Omega to Upsilon.” She looked at him expectantly and he simply waited. “What that means is that you’re still nothing, but you’re now ready to choose the element you want to wield, and if you’re lucky, that element will accept you and you’ll survive making the choice.”
Tibs tried to figure out what she’d said. He didn’t feel any harder, the one thing he did catch was the one that made no sense to him. “I thought only sorcerers used elements.”
“A common misconception,” she said, waving his comment aside. “Every adventurer wields an element. The sorcerers at just more overt about it. The rest of us are smarter about how we use them.” She leaned back in her chair. “Now, what element do you want?”
Tibs didn’t answer, thinking back on his first day, when he saw an adventurer cover a beggar’s hand with ice and break it off. Was that how he’d done it? Using an element? “What are they?” he asked when he felt her expectant gaze on him.
She frowned. “You have to know. Water, fire, air, and earth.”
Tibs nodded, then frowned. Hadn’t she referred to mind as an element earlier? “Are there others?”
Her smile was small. “Of course. Plenty more, like metal, wood, darkness, but you don’t want one of those. For someone like you, one of the core elements is best.”
“Why?” Tibs couldn’t see how air was better than metal. Weapons were made of metal so that would let them control them, right? He could keep from getting hurt by them, it would make him unstoppable.
“The simplest answer,” she said after studying him for a few seconds, “is that the core elements don’t require any previous training to start using.”
Tibs frowned. He couldn’t see how that made sense. How could elements require training before you had them? How could you train something until you had it?
“Let me explain it this way,” she said. “When you have an element, you also have a reserve. Think of it as how much you can use that element before getting tired, like how much you can run before having to rest. The core elements are all around us. So your reserve will recharge by itself even without you doing anything. You can help it by going someplace where it’s more abundant, like standing next to a fire, but just standing in the street, your reserve will slowly refill. Do you understand that much?”
Tibs nodded, if it was a question of having to find places where there was more of an element, he could see how the core elements were more practical.
“Now with the other elements, you either have to be around them, or know how to actively pull them out of what’s around you. That’s what requires training. If you don’t have it, you won’t be able to do anything with the element. If you’ve planned ahead, you can manage without that training. For example, if you chose wood because you know that you’re going to live an adventure in forests or jungles, then you can survive until then. It’s going to be much harder because you’re going to have to go through Upsilon while barely being able to refill your reserves, but it can be done. When you’re in your forest, then it’ll be easier. So if you’re going to pick one of the other elements, you need to have planned ahead, and let’s be honest, you don’t seem the type to have done a lot of planning.”
He nodded, ignoring the condescending way she’d said those last things. “How do I know which is best for me?”
“What do you plan to do with it?”
Survive, was his first thought, immediately followed by images of hurting the men who’d hurt him, who’d hurt Mama. Making them suffer for taking her from him. He bit his lower lip. He knew what she’d say if he told her that. What she’d think of him. She’d see him as no better than the adventurers who guarded the town. This was about making him into an adventurer, and even on the street, he’d heard the bards sing the stories. They protected people. They went out and killed monsters. They didn’t hurt people.
“I want to be able to protect myself,” then added, “and for others to stop dying.”
She nodded. “For that, you have two main options. Earth and water. Earth stands for solidity, immovability. Those with that element stand between people and their enemies, taking the hits for them and hitting hard in return.”
Tibs looked at himself; his short frame, small hands, then back at her.
“Not really a good fit for you, is it?” She smiled. “Water, on the other hand, is about flexibility, adaptability. It looks soft and pliant, comforting, but it can be hard, smothering. Properly wielded, water can be a wall that will stop even the most determined warrior, and that’s used by someone who has no creativity.”
Tibs nodded. He liked the way she implied he could do more with it. He thought about fire and air, but he could see how fire was mainly about destroying things, and air… he needed to think harder about that one, but he realized air was what they breathed. So it would be mainly about suffocating others. He liked how both would hurt, but what would she think of him for picking them?
“Water,” he answered, deciding to be safe, and counting on being able to think of ways to use it to get what he wanted.
She smiled at him. “Very good choice.” She tapped something out of sight on her side of the desk and leaned back in her chair.
When nothing happened after a minute, Tibs looked around. “What happens now?”
“Now we have to wait for the man I summoned to arrive. He’ll be who takes you to your audience with Water.”
Tibs had thought it would just happen. An audience meant meeting someone. Would he have to convince that man he deserved water as an element? What happened if he decided Tibs was good enough? Tibs considered asking Tirania, but what if she decided he wasn’t confident enough to merit an element at all? How long would it take for that man to arrive? Did she expect him to be silent the whole time?
“What happens afterward?” he asked. “Someone said that if we survive the dungeon long enough, we can go free.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Go back to the street? To picking pockets and stealing heirlooms?”
Tibs shrugged. What else did he have to go back to, other than his plans? And he wasn’t going to mention those to her, or anyone else.
She sighed. “Epsilon is when you’ll be acknowledged as an adventurer. You’ll have paid your due to the guild by working the dungeon or doing tasks for us. There’s more than one way to reach that level, although yours is most likely the dungeon.”
Tibs nodded, then stopped. “Didn’t you say I’m epsilon now?”
“Upsilon is where you are,” she answered, pronouncing the word slower. “Epsilon is where you will get the freedom you want.”
He nodded, hearing the difference, as slight as it was. “How far is that?”
She shook her head sadly. “You really know nothing of the world, do you?”
“On the street, the only time I’ve encountered the world is when city guards sweep it because a noble was passing by. They don’t spend a lot of time answering questions when they’re kicking you into hiding so the visitor won’t have to acknowledge we exist.” Tibs noticed the anger in his voice, his arms crossed over his chest, and forced them down.
She chuckled. “Don’t ask a guard about the world, all you’ll get are legends and misconceptions. But I get your point. The world you come from didn’t lend itself to learning the intricacies of power.” She steepled her fingers before her. “There are ten levels of power. You were Omega. Everyone alive starts there, but we only assign it to those seeking to become adventurers since those are the only ones who have a chance to graduate to the higher ones.”
“No one else can do it?”
“Exceptional people can,” She answered, “but let’s not get distracted. This is about you, and if not for the opportunity a new dungeon gave you, you wouldn’t even be considered Omega. Once you’re allowed to travel, you’ll find that different societies have different words for what I’m explaining, but the guild enforces standard terms to avoid confusion. Alright?”
Tibs nodded so she’d continue, even if he wasn’t sure what she meant.
“Each level is progressively more difficult to reach and requires a combination of hardening your body, your mind, and your spirit as well as learning how to harness your element. Each level with your element will grant you abilities primarily dictated by it, but how you train can influence that. As an example, as a rogue with water for an element, you could train to use it to become more difficult to be struck, or to shape it into a knife so you will always be armed. Maybe you’ll seek something more rogue-like and train yourself to use water so you can enter places more easily. Or you’ll internalize your element. As I said, in the end, a lot of what you’ll be able to do depends on how you train.”
Tibs nodded and opened his mouth to ask again how far he had to go before reaching epsilon, but the door opened.
“It’s about time, Alistair,” She said, her tone severe. “I was starting to think you thought you were too good to answer a summons.”
