The weeks passed one after another, the city that we had arrived in months ago now was getting colder and colder. The cold wasn't the only change that I had noticed; however, it seemed that people were more and more on edge. Ever since the battle at the palace, the people of the city had been preparing as best as they could. People were stockpiling food and weapons.
Adventurers were being put through intensive training, so much so that the government had decided to have all certified job masters waive their training fees. Instead, the court was supplying the money for this. Roughly a month ago, the attackers' identity had come to light. It was the country to the east Brinta that had infiltrated the palace and hoped to gain power by killing most of the royal family and taking the youngest daughter captive.
It was truly a time of fear in this place that we had once called home. The hustle and bustle of the Travelers Guild were even in a subdued state. There were old adventurers like Jake, who knew that they would soon be drafted to fight for this country once again. They walked around with stern looks on their faces, but for the most part, they all did their best to look after us—the newly tested silver tag adventurers.
This would be the very first time that most of them had seen real combat against a human enemy. We would be facing travelers from other way stations across this world. People who had no choice but to come here and fight for the country that had given them a home. It was during this time that I found myself sitting in the bar waiting for the barkeeper to get me a drink.
The barkeeper and I had mostly mended our disagreements from the past at this point, and I would come to him for information about the war.
"So, have you heard anything lately?" The barkeeper nodded his head before speaking solemnly.
"Yeah, Brinta isn't far from our border now. You'll be receiving the draft soon, I think." I was disappointed to hear that; my hope was that this could all be solved diplomatically and that we would never have to go to a battlefield. I had gotten stronger over the past few months that I'd been training with Master. She would have me spar her every day, making sure that I maintained stone skin. Like with all alchemy, the skill required some amount of focus.
But the more that we fought, the easier it felt to maintain it. The surprising part of all of this was how strong my teacher was at hand to hand combat. During one of our sparing sessions, I let my mind wander slightly. 'She must have been something to see back in her day.' My drift in thought only served to allow her to kick me in the head, though.
"Ye can't get distracted!" She had exclaimed to me. Stone Skin wasn't the only thing that she had taught me during this time, though. I had learned a lot more about potion making, and we spent a lot of time stocking up on those. They would be instrumental when the battles really started. I also learned how to bottle lightning. She taught me the basics of craftsmanship so that I could begin engineering my own inventions whenever I came up with an idea.
I gained a skill called Polarity, which took me a week and a half to really learn. It wasn't extremely strong, I couldn't stop a sword coming straight at me or anything, but I could slightly adjust the course of arrows now by focusing on the metal tips. In order to make it slightly stronger, I could use what the people of this world called a Meta Stone. But in my world, I probably would have just called it a loadstone or a magnet.
I wasn't the only one growing stronger either; the entire group was. Laura had branched out; after seeing the Queen use lightning magic, she decided that she too would learn it. She told me that she had plans to specialize in weather magic, and she was making good on that too. She grew more powerful with each passing day, and you could tell that when we went hunting. What used to be small spears of ice could now probably pierce the hide of a Great Goblin.
Sarah had been focusing a lot on increasing her range, accuracy, and stealth. There were times now that when she would walk through the forest, you wouldn't hear a leaf crunch under her. She could disappear from sight in the blink of an eye, and you'd be extremely hard-pressed to find her if she didn't want you to. She had learned a couple of very useful skills as well; one of them was Wind Shot. This skill allowed her to use the wind to carry her arrows farther so that she could snipe from farther off than before. The other was sound shot, she would pull magical energy into her ears, and as an arrow hit a target in the distance, it would act as a kind of echolocation.
Grace had hardened her body through intense battle training. She could now use magic to increase her strength. She had learned the skill Stonewall, it was different from my Stone Skin in the sense that it didn't actually increase her defense, but by using the power of the earth, she could root herself down and could only be moved by a fair bit of force. The Paladin was quickly rising through the ranks, so much that she had even confidently told us that by the time the gold tag exam rolled around, she would also be at the top of her class.
Derek's focus was speed and agility; his swordsmanship was lightning fast. At this point, you could barely see the sword moving. He could now do flips and dodge much easier than before. He had also taken it upon himself to learn a wind skill. Like my Stone Skin, it was something that affected his whole body but by an external force. His was called Aero and caused him to have less resistance when moving, it was as if the wind would push him in the direction that he wanted to go, and there was nothing that could stop him. Except for a tree that one time.
Tim had been working on his necromancy skill. He could now take control of a group of ten weak monsters who had died, and he was also working on a skill that allowed him to heal multiple targets from far away. He had grown in strength, I think more than any of us, as he spent several hours a day in the temple and had me grow him moon lilies to make offerings to the gods. It was even evident in the speed of his healing. He no longer had to say a prayer out loud when doing basic healing. The god that had granted him that ability took a liking to him one day after an offering and had rewarded him with that.
It was great to see everyone working so hard. We had even been able to fix the roof and build a small shed where we were able to store food. But you could tell that the pressure was starting to get to everyone. No one knew exactly when we would be summoned or what would be happening soon. All we knew was that we had to get stronger; we couldn't lose anyone from our newly made family.
As the weather grew colder, it became more difficult for us to sit outside anymore. We'd bought heavy new blankets and winter coats. I started growing the flower that my Master had shown me on the first day in my garden so that we could use them as hand warmers in our pockets. Today was odd; we had received word from our teachers that lessons had been canceled for the day. So we were all at home together.
The group huddled together in the boys' room, just trying to catch up on what everyone had been up to. I couldn't even think of the last time we were all able just to hang out together. Looking around the room, I could see that some smiles were starting to come back to their faces. We had a good dinner, and mostly everyone fell asleep in the same room, barely feet away from each other. Once they were sleeping, I put on my coat and walked outside.
The cold bit at my cheeks, but I didn't mind it too much. I looked up at the sky, trying to see the stars, but the clouds were in the way. Instead, a different shine came from the sky. It was that of light bouncing off of snowflakes.
"The first snow," I said out loud to myself and sighed. That's when Tim came out of the house, wondering where I was.
"Todd?"