The daemon raised its hands in the air with a shrug, then tucked itself back in the corner of the sofa and curled up.

  “No way.” He stepped over and poked the little ball with his finger. A puff of black smoke came off of the form where his finger hit. “Get up. You’re not sleeping till I get some answers.”

  Lazily stretching and straightening itself out, the daemon scooted to the edge of the couch with its legs dangling off and waved its hand towards him in a ‘go ahead’ gesture.

  Raith opened his mouth and then closed it. He was stumped on how to proceed. It had already indicated it didn’t know how it got here, and there was no good way to interrogate it for information, if it even had any. Which it probably didn’t.

  Shit. This is too weird, even for me.

  “Do you have a name?”

  It nodded. Ok, that was something. He wracked his memories of Crinkle, trying to think of what he’d seen Vandamir’s pet do over the years.

  “Can you read?”

  Again, it nodded.

  “Can you write?”

  It cocked its head to the side, then back up. Lifting a finger, it scrawled into the air, trailing with wispy black smoke.

  ‘YES’

  The smoke hung for only a moment before dissipating.

  “What’s your name?”

  ‘VEIL’

  “Your name is Veil?”

  Veil nodded in confirmation.

  “Why didn’t you say you could write earlier?”

  ‘DON’T’

  ‘LIKE’

  “You don’t like to write?”

  Again with the nod. This was already getting tedious.

  “Alright, one last question for now: Are you here and out in the real world at the same time, or just here?”

  Veil pointed firmly downwards and nodded, then jerked its thumb over its shoulder and shook its head ‘no’.

  Just one or the other.

  “Thanks, Veil. We’ll get this figured out. I’ve got to do some reading. You can just relax there. Or whatever it is you do.”

  Do I need to feed him? Do they even eat? I really need to find someone who can tell me about daemons.

  Raith walked over to find the cursedly large tome lying horizontally on its own shelf. It was no smaller here than it had been in real life, and on a whim he tried to concentrate and shrink the stupid thing.

  It did not shrink.

  All that can be said for the next few minutes is that [Lesser Strength] was the right choice. It was still a huge pain in the ass to take that tome off the shelf and position it to read, but the process was considerably easier now. Veil had decided not to stay put, and complicated the struggle by ‘helping’ to push, and otherwise getting underfoot and in the way.

  The first time he read this book, he’d been excited beyond words to search through it for his class. This time around, he was considerably less motivated, and the cyclops’ pretentious prose only made it worse.

  How ironic that I need [Lesser Mental Endurance] in order to get it.

  Veil hopped up on his shoulder, and he found it somewhat comforting to absentmindedly pet the creature as he slowly poured through the pages.

  He found the section on [Rare Tome Procurement Specialist] with all of its attendant [Skill] upgrades and possible braid-ups. After a bit of skimming he found that a signature [Skill] of the first adventurer to weave this [Class] was an upgrade of [Bookbinding] called [Duplicate Book].

  It could only be used once a month, but created a perfect copy of any tome, regardless of the condition of the original. Recalling his long night of tedious dictation for Guildmaster Embrey, the use of such an ability began to sound rather appealing. A little further reading showed that the [Skill] explicitly did not synergize with [Mnemonic Library] by letting the user make a physical copy of anything in their library.

  ‘The ephemera of dreams lack the structure of a weave to maintain its form in the mortal realm.’

  It was still a pretty awesome, if fairly limited, [Skill]. With the right tomes, it was practically a endless bag of gold if you could find the buyers.

  The class name makes a lot more sense now that I think about it.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  It still wasn’t his first choice of [Skills] (he would have much preferred [Decipher Enchantment] to identify items) but he really needed to free up that slot so he could study efficiently.

  Before he could start second guessing himself, Raith stepped out of his library and upgraded [Bookbinding] to [Duplicate Book]. The pattern wasn’t nearly as complicated as [Mnemonic Library] had been, but he still had to pause continually and double check his work.

  By the time it was done and he stitched [Lesser Mental Endurance], Raith saw the sun shining in around the boards they’d nailed over the broken window. Veil was fussing around by Tolliver’s sleeping form, but came running over when Raith stirred.

  “Were you really in my library with me?”

  Veil gave a nod and two thumbs up, then ran over and disappeared into a shadow beneath the table. Looking around the cabin, he saw that Nyhm and Thea weren’t in the room and must have snuck out while he was working on his pattern.

  After he ate a nice everything-loaf meal and washed it down with a canteen of water, he made his way outside. The sun was well above the horizon, and he blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted from the dark cabin. He heard a grunt and some swearing, so followed the noise around to a small clearing out back.

  Thea and Nyhm were circling each other carefully, her shield up and free hand low by her waist. His brother came in fast with a front kick, followed by two strikes. Thea had no trouble keeping her shield in front of the blows, but wasn’t able to mount a counterattack before the nimble elfling moved back out of range.

  As her movements brought her around to face Raith, she glanced at him in surprise just as Nyhm came in for another flurry. The distraction made her catch a heel to the chin that sent her back onto her ass. She glared up at Raith.

  “You don’t have to always have to be such a sneaky fucker.”

  “I was literally just standing here.”

  “Sneakily.”

  Nyhm gave her a hand up, and the two made their way over.

  “When did you two start training together?”

  His brother looked at Thea, who gave him a pat on the shoulder.

  “Only just this morning. After the last few fights, and seeing you two go at it, I asked if he could start beating the shit out of me, too. My offense could use some work.”

  Nyhm nodded.

  “She has powerful legs and those hooves could be deadly if she learns how to use them better.”

  “That a fantastic idea, you two. Maybe Thea and I should start sparring, too.”

  She flashed him a wicked grin, and he immediately regretted the words. Nyhm nodded in agreement, clearly missing that his brother’s life may be in danger.

  Over the next several hours, an inordinate number of bruises were acquired, and half a bottle of healing potion consumed. They agreed that since Thea’s [Quest] didn’t involve any fighting, it was safe to use the potions for some excellent training. It was nice to practice against a shield and someone who had a distance attack.

  Tolliver eventually emerged from the cabin to find both Raith and his brother lying on their backs and groaning in pain. Thea was standing over them with hands on her hips and a proud smile on her face.

  “What in the five realms are you lot up to?”

  Raith sat up and grabbed his head, trying to decide if he need more healing. Thea had managed to get them both with a [Doublestrike] shield throw after they decided to make it a three way melee.

  “Thea attacked us for no reason. Get her.”

  The [Mage] gave her a look of alarm and raised his hands to cast a spell. Thea threw up her shield and took a step back.

  “He’s joking, you daft fucker.” She kicked Raith in the shin hard enough to make him yelp. “Tell him you’re joking.”

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

  Tolliver lowered his hands and frowned.

  “It is very difficult to tell sometimes. You’re quite a suspicious group of people, I hope you realize.”

  Thea dropped her jaw in amazement.

  “We’re suspicious?”

  Raith clambered to his feet and held up his hands.

  “Let’s not get started. Tolliver, are you doing alright this morning?”

  The noble looked down uncomfortably and blushed.

  “If you all are training, I ask that you please allow me to participate. I am not very proud of my performance yestereve, nor when we fought the root tenders.” Looking up, he met Raith’s eyes. “I thought I would be better at this, if I must be honest. Instead, I find that I am quite frightened, and I don’t care for it very much.”

  Raith stepped forwards and clapped the [Mage] on the shoulder. That must have been hard to say, especially for a noble.

  “Of course you can participate. I apologize for not thinking of it myself. We’re long overdue for some actual team training.” He glanced over at Thea and Nyhm. “The morning is already half gone. Why don’t we stay here one more night and use the day to train? We can head out tomorrow.”

  Everyone agreed that was a good plan, and the Myth Seekers spent the next eight hours practicing tactics and teamwork with an energy that bordered on fanatic. Even the noble seemed strangely invested in getting the most out of their time.

  They sparred each other singly, in every combination of pairs, and followed up with three on one. Raith even got Veil involved, having the daemon grow to the size of a man and harry the team around the clearing. It wasn’t the same as a foe you could actually hurt, but it was useful to have a target and something attacking you to shore up holes in their tactics. It also gave Raith some ideas for how to make better use of his [Mnemonic Library] training. The little daemon really got into it, and Raith got the feeling it was enjoying its role.

  When they tired, Tolliver shared his stamina potions, insisting that it was a trivial expense and he would resupply in Old Valen. It was the most generous Raith had ever seen the man, and he finally seemed to be warming up to the team.

  I wish we’d had a chance to do this a long time ago.

  Among the valuable discoveries borne out over the course of the day, they found that the protection Tolliver’s new cloak offered carried over into bat form; a Concussive Blast spell followed immediately by a [Shield Bash] was an absolutely devastating one-two punch; deafening someone with a Sphere of Silence is a huge tactical advantage, even against non-magic users; and that Nyhm’s heart tattoo provided immunity to Thea’s grasping vines spell, which made for another useful team synergy.

  Following a Sonic Cleanse, they all sat around the table that night exhausted and satisfied. The real miracle occurred when Tolliver broke out a delicious rabbit stew and red wine that he shared with the rest of them. Nyhm and Raith offered a polite thanks, but Thea looked like she was about to cry over the delicious repast after weeks of everything-loaf.

  For the first time in a while, maybe ever, Raith felt like they were really a team. With a warm heart, he watched his companions settle contentedly into their bedrolls for the night. Even his normally indefatigable brother had been worn out by the day’s training.

  Raith lay back onto his own bedroll with his head on clasped hands. Even if he didn’t need the sleep, his sore muscles definitely needed a nice long rest. Veil came over and curled up on his chest, and he gave the daemon’s head some scritchings.

  “You did a good job helping today. Thank you.”

  It nuzzled his hand in reply, then settled back in. This had been an excellent day. In less than a week, they should be in Janekstown, earning some easy levels and perfecting the strong foundation they’d built today. Things were only looking up.

  He closed his eyes, activated [Life in Staccato], and after a moment decided not to go to his library. Instead, he allowed himself to drift off into the perfect void of a long and dreamless sleep.

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