“I wish that I had met you before last week,” said Isra. Mizuki was listening closely, and she wondered whether she’d only imagined hearing Isra’s voice catch.
Mizuki diverted to lighter fare for the rest of their walk and kept the conversation afloat on her own, but Mizuki had quite liked their talk, and it seemed that Isra had too. Mizuki found herself making a list in her head of all the things she needed to do, and the ones involving Isra went to the top of it. Alfric would be so proud of her.
And if they
The Adventurers’ League was in charge of all matters related to the dungeons across Interim and predated the actual conglomerate country by quite some time. It had originally started as a trade association, but through the many centuries it had been around, it had eventually come to be nationalized and served as a semi-independent arm of the Interim government. The League were the ones who put locks on the dungeons, dealt with needed repairs, created maps of where the dungeons were, tracked dungeon status, and most importantly authorized who would be allowed to go into the dungeons. Anything that came out of the dungeons was for some other department to deal with, but anyone who wanted to go into the dungeons fell under the authority of the League.
The League had set a strict age limit on dungeoneering, under the rationale that the younger you were, the less likely you were to have proper training and the more likely it was you would make bad decisions. But because there were always enthusiastic young people wanting to get into dungeoneering, the Junior League had been formed, and its mandate was to get these young people ready.
Alfric had entered into the Junior League as young as possible, age twelve, and immediately found it to be a bit of a disappointment. For one thing, it was simply too little time, only twice a week for a few hours. The other big problem was that it didn’t seem to be taken very seriously either by the other members or by the adults running the thing. It was more social than practical, an ‘activity’ for kids to do. They went on too many field trips that were only loosely tied into dungeoneering, like going to the Dondrian Metropolitan Zoo to see all kinds of examples of monsters, most of which were docile forms grown from dungeon eggs or hostile forms tucked behind smoked glass. If it had been accompanied by a frank discussion from a dungeoneer about the varieties of monsters found in dungeons, Alfric wouldn’t have minded it so much, but no, they were just wandering between exhibits, gawking at the captured monsters.
It was on one of those pointless trips that Alfric had properly met Josen. They had been in Junior League together for nearly a year but had known each other only by name. While the others were playing around and staring at the monsters in their habitats, Josen had been looking through a small pane of glass he held in his hand. Alfric approached cautiously.
“Is that an entad?” he asked.
“No,” said Josen. He stood there for a moment, looking through the piece of glass and giving the impression that he was hoping their conversation was done. “It’s meant to be a method of seeing the aether, but I don’t think it’s working.”
“If it’s not an entad, what is it?” asked Alfric, frowning.
“I’m a wizard,” said Josen. “It’s a mana construct anchored to the glass. But like I said, it’s not working. If it was, you’d be able to see it too.”
“I tried wizardry,” said Alfric. “My teachers didn’t think I was very good.” Anyone could, in theory, be a wizard, but in practice, if you didn’t have the proper aptitude, you would be forever behind those who had it. Working five times as hard just to tread water wasn’t something Alfric had thought was a big deal, not at the time, but his parents had told him no.
“It’s the only thing I’m good at,” said Josen. He looked down at the non-functional pane of glass in his hands. “Usually. This is complicated.”
“Most wizards can’t do anything until they’re much older,” said Alfric.
Josen nodded. “My mother and father are both wizards. They trained me early.”
“My mother and father are both dungeoneers,” said Alfric.
