Growing Pains

Laying on a bench in the adventurers guild Jarod felt mostly fine. Something which was true only because of the potions he'd been drinking. Before he'd managed to get one down he'd felt like he'd been beaten mostly to death. The skeletons were a cheerful lot for the most part, but they didn't pull punches.

"That was awful," Pip muttered. He was still sitting up, but slumped on the table and curled around his ale. He was sipping it through a straw, too gone to bother with drinking properly. Jarod understood the feeling, he'd tried and mostly ended up pouring his own drink in the vicinity of his mouth rather than in it.

Cord was the only one upright, though he was cheating since his back was to the wall. He was managing to drink though, if slowly. It was a funny thing, potions healed up the damage and usually the pain as well. Yet if the beating was bad enough, some of it seemed to linger. A faint memory rather than the acute pain of actual injury, but still there.

"Quint's doing better at least," Cord said with a shrug. Quint was still in the dungeon, he hadn't gotten the worst of it in terms of injuries but he'd been barred from using potions. Something about having to learn to heal himself using his own magic. Jarod did not envy him that lesson.

"Is he?" Pip asked bitterly.

"Pip," Jarod growled. He was too tired to muster up anything properly intimidating so it mostly sounded tired rather than threatening. This wasn't the first time he'd had to shut the other man's complaints down.

"What? He's taking too long and barely learning anything. Even the other mages say so," Pip said, temper clearly up.

"Be fair, he's far stronger than he was," Jarod said, hoping to put the matter aside.

"Yeah, I know, but not as strong as he should be. I know a proper mage is stronger than any of us, even now. Which is why it's so obvious that something is wrong. He can't hold his own," Pip countered. Jarod groaned, he'd wanted to avoid this particular discussion for a number of reasons. The fact that Pip wasn't wrong being chief among them.

"Pip, I can barely do arithmetic and I'm entirely illiterate. Do you really think it would be easy to go from that to having to do all that stuff he's got to?" Jarod asked.

"No, but the others say it doesn't matter, memorizing is fine," Pip said, less confident now.

"The lady would step in if it were really a problem, like with your teacher… Besides, what's some extra time before we're required to make good on the bargain? Getting impatient to face the dungeon?" Jarod asked.

"No! Just-" Pip stopped, turning his face away.

None of them spoke for a while after that and Pip was the first to drag himself away in the direction of the boarding house.

"He's not wrong," Cord said. He'd taken the worst of the blows that day but had complained the least.

"I'm aware, but Pip will just get worse about it if I agree," Jarod said with a sigh. Cord nodded at that. It was a well established problem that agreeing with Pip in part would invite trouble because he turned deaf to anything after that point. You had to be all in on his side or against him, middle ground didn't seem to exist.

"You're not wrong either, it's just frustrating, this whole place is," Cord added. Jarod raised his mug weakly to that and Cord tapped his to it, but neither of them drank, feeling too listless to continue.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Jarod woke with an ache in his back from sleeping on the bench. He didn't remember falling asleep but he supposed that made sense. He'd have at least gotten on the floor if he'd realized what was happening. Soft snores let him know that Cord had done the same and would likely have a stiff neck going by how his head was lolling on his shoulder.

Sitting up, he found himself looking across the table at Dawn. A cold plate of fruit and cheese was waiting for him. Another was in front of Cord.

"Good morning," Dawn said, gold eyes mirthful.

"Mornin," Jarod managed.

"How are you? I couldn't help but notice you all seemed to have the doldrums last night," Dawn said. She didn't have any food of her own, but did have an odd metallic looking thing in her hand that she was sipping from. He'd noticed them occasionally among the skeletons but hadn't asked and made up his mind not to this time either. He was curious but also certain he wouldn't like the answer as to what it was.

"Well, yeah. Not much to do here aside from train or play cards and such," Jarod said, not seeing a point in lying. They could get drunk too, but there wasn't really anywhere fun to do it. The town wasn't exactly boring, but it was close. The kind of place a farmer would think was grand.

"Ehm, and that's not so fun for you," Dawn said, expression contemplative. Jarod nodded in agreement.

The skeletons played games one of two ways, with tokens or with dares. Jarod had no idea why they coveted the stone chips like they seemed too, as pretty as they could be, and couldn't feel excited when playing with them. Games that centered on the second, the Daggers just outright weren't allowed to play in, though they could watch.

Those had been fun in a twisted way at first, but the charm wore off quickly. The skeletons couldn't be harmed let alone really die. So extremes were quickly abandoned in favor of more personal dares. Those were hard to comprehend since Jarod didn't know any of them well enough to understand why something was funny or humiliating in most cases.

Making someone scared of heights jump from a roof made sense, making another get in water and wash had just been odd. Particularly since they'd been all bones in the second case. Why the second skeleton had caterwauled more than the first was a mystery Jarod wasn't interested in solving.

"You know, we actually feel similar on that point. This town is nice and we like being able to do what we want, but it's not very… lively, I guess. It's why we're looking forward to getting more mortals in," Dawn offered and sighed.

"Because you're bored?" Jarod asked, genuinely surprised.

"Not the reason you were expecting?" Dawn asked, chuckling.

"Well… no," Jarod said, laughing too.

"We want people to try the dungeon, but that's only part of the matter. We honestly don't have ill intent towards anyone who chooses to live here," Dawn said. "Well, most of us, but 42 won't let anyone hurt townsfolk even if they want to."

"Why?" Jarod asked before he could think better of it. That was a question inviting trouble.

"Because the only one more bored than us is her. You've seen how she fusses with the town," Dawn answered simply. "How many windows the buildings have, the colors, she's changing things about because it's something to do, but it's not enough."

"Really? I thought I was seeing things," Jarod admitted. He'd not made an in depth study of the town but occasionally something would stand out to him as odd. Changed in some way though he was never quite sure how.

"Well, all of that aside, I talked to 42 about it. If you and the rest of your team feel up to it, you can leave the town. Maybe try and find some work to test out your abilities rather than staying cooped up here training," Dawn offered.

"She agreed to that?" Jarod asked, not quite believing it.

"She took a little convincing, but your team has mastered their class skills. It's time for you to go out into the world and get some proper experience," Dawn said with a grin.

"Right, but we made an agreement. We'll have to go face the dungeon," Jarod said, stomach clenching in dread. He would keep his end of the deal but he wasn't eager for it.

"Not right away, but soon. This is an extension of your training rather than an end to it, you'll have a month before you have to set out for the actual mission," Dawn explained.

"Alright, I'll let the others know," Jarod said after a moment to gather his thoughts. The break would be welcomed and the timetable was sooner than he'd like but longer than he'd thought he'd get.

"Good, and take your time, you're on break from training until you leave," Dawn said. With a nod she stood and left, heading toward the staircase that led to the upper level of the guild.

Left with his breakfast and Cord, it took Jarod a few moments to realize that at some point the familiar snoring had stopped.

"How much of that did you hear?" Jarod asked. Cord obligingly opened his eyes, not bothering with further pretense.

"Enough to be glad I saved some coin for a whore," Cord said, grinning. Jarod just snorted at that and started in on his breakfast. It really was just like Cord to treat saving money for an obvious need like it was special. The man just refused to learn how budgets worked.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.