Thera woke up unhappy. Frankly she had been angry since the previous night, having been forced into partying with some random man just because she didn’t have anyone else to adventure with at the moment. No matter how much gratitude she had for her uncle or how much she respected his opinion she would still much rather be going out by herself until she found a real adventurer she could work with. Still she would need staves, and if this was how she was going to get them then so be it. She would just treat it as if she were adventuring alone and hope whatever his name was could manage himself.

She ate a quick breakfast with her aunt as the sun was rising and walked over to Falk's shop, prepared to meet with her temporary companion, but saw nobody waiting outside so she went in.

Her uncle was sweeping and dusting the place, as he always did to try and keep it presentable. “Good morning Uncle, where’s this boy I’m stuck with?” She couldn’t keep the annoyance from her voice.

“Mornin’ Thera, he’s just behind the counter. Wake him up and you can be on your way.”

“What?” She wasn’t immediately sure what he meant by that but walked around the counter to see him asleep on the floor, one light blanket over him and another rolled under his head.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Nearly stepped on him myself when I got in, but it looked like he had had a long night. Figured I’d let the brat relax a bit before you got here.”

She gave a loud sigh, even more unimpressed than she had been previously, and grabbed the staff Falk had given her yesterday. It was a bit longer than her arm, and nice and solid. Seeing as how it would be the last one she got from Falk for a while it seemed a waste, but she used it to poke at the boy's face until he woke up.

“Uhhg. was that really necessary.” He asked, massaging his jaw.

“I told you we were leaving an hour after sunrise, it’s not my fault you weren’t up for it. Grab what you need and let's go already.”

“Sure, sure give me a minute.” he walked into the back rooms to splash some water on his face and grabbed three staves and a bag. “So what's the plan for the day?”

She eyed them, unable to help but be a little curious about how they turned out, before answering. “We’re going to the adventurers guild, now come on and hurry up.”

She hurried over to the adventurers guild with him and went over to the front desk where they were greeted by an employee, the faceless hominid Onk. “Morning Thera, oh and you're with Ben! I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

Right, his name’s Ben, I guess I should at least try and remember that. Wait how does he know Onk?

“I thought you said you weren't an adventurer?”

“Well I’ve joined the guild but I’m not really.” He responded, shifting around awkwardly.

Onk stepped in to explain on his behalf. “Oh he just joined to use our books to learn about the resources in the area. A little unusual but there's no rules against it.”

Didn’t uncle say something about buying materials he hunted? Maybe I’m just remembering wrong. “Well unfortunately I’m forced to party with him for a while. Can you find something you think we could handle?”

“Hmm, Ben I have to say I don’t think this is a good idea. Have you developed any combat skills in the past few months?”

“I haven’t but this is the will of my teacher. For the next little while I’ll be in charge of making her equipment so do you think you could give us an easy quest for now so we could see how what I already made her works out?”

“Well if it can’t be avoided then I guess that's that. Thera I know you usually try one rank 6 quest a day, but for now I would recommend you accept rank 7 hunting quest. Right now I would say to try and find some scrells. There isn’t a minimum quantity, we pay by the kill, and there's no time limit for it so just hunt what you can while you get used to working with Ben okay?”

She had already been unhappy, and now she had to take quests below her level. “Fine. what do they look like and where have they been spotted.”

Surprising her though, Ben spoke up to answer. “They’re typically in the western part of the forest, about a forty-minute walk up along the river.”

“How do you know that?”

“All the monsters in the area are written in the archives.”

“He’s quite the voracious reader.” Onk chimed in.

“Fine then, we’ll take it. Come on let's go.”

They walked in silence as they left the town, Ben leading the way. They didn't talk for most of the trip and Thera would have been happy to keep it like that if her curiosity didn't get the best of her.

"What are you doing?"

Ever since they left the town Ben had been picking up handfuls of rocks and twigs, stared at one for a while, then dropped it and moved on to the next, all seemingly for no reason.

"Oh this? Falk told me there was no real point in training my enchanting with him until I raised it another level or two since my skill was still too low to do anything more than just apply skill effects or use basic enchanting spells on it, so when I get the chance I practice applying them until the enchantments break and damage the material." At that he gestured to the stone in his hand and gave it a small squeeze, causing it to crumble to dust. "I only learned that enchanting actually has spells associated with it a little while ago beyond just applying skills you already have. Unfortunately, they end up being weaker than any equivalent skill that could be applied but beggars can't be choosers."

"But why sticks and stones? Surely better quality material could hold more enchantments."

"Do you have any idea how expensive that would be? I'm already barely making enough to cover my living costs, gotta pinch every penny I can.”

“Is that why you wanted any scraps you could get from my uncle?”

“Well that's one reason for sure, but really it's just for any general practice. Getting free leftovers is going to net me plenty of materials I normally couldn’t afford, even if the quantities are small. It should be all sorts of fun seeing what I could do with them.”

There was a smile plastered on his face as Thera watched him ramble on about various things he wanted to try, and she started to just tune him out. He seemed passionate at least and she couldn’t help but be a bit envious of having blessed skills that he actually enjoyed. Her thoughts darkened as she thought about her own. Having earth magic wasn’t so bad, even if her level with it was low, but as for the other one…

“But don’t let me ramble on by myself, tell me a bit about yourself Thera.” Ben asked, pulling her away from her thoughts.

Still her life was private. Not something she would just share. “There's nothing to tell. I left my family a year ago to see a bit of the world and improve my magic, that's all.”

“Do anything for fun?”

“No.”

“God I hope that's not true, it's good to have some excitement in life.”

“I question how exciting a craftsman's life could be.”

His smile cracked and for a second Ben wore a truly sad expression before bouncing back. “Oh you may be surprised. Never know when something unexpected may happen.”

She wanted to ask what he meant and was a little worried she offended him before but chose to say nothing. It was never a good idea to get too close to anyone she partied with. They walked in silence for a while longer before Ben stopped.

“Alright, this should be the general area we need to start looking.”