Sitting on the wall of the ruined tower with my feet dangling, I plotted out my message to Mom. “I still can’t believe this stupid Spell has a thirty minute cooldown with three hundred and fifty [Arcane] with nearly seventy-five percent mastery.” I grumbled to myself. “Normal people must have to wait four plus hours, or maybe even a day when they learn it.”

  Behind me, someone giggled as Gabby joined me on the wall. “That’s why I never learned it myself, to be honest. My Stats lean far more into [Wits] and [Charm], given what I’ve been doing the past few dozen years. Because of that, I was told I’d have to wait days to send multiple twenty-five word messages when I talked to the local [Augur].” She smiled when I looked at her with a cocked head, obviously confused.

  “It’s someone who can tell you how something will affect your Stats or how a particular Skill or Spell will work for you.” She flipped her glittering gold locks over her shoulder. “It’s a Rare D-rank Class, but nobody really wants it. It has absolutely no combat capability and very little in the way of ways to make money outside of that one thing. The problem they run into is that very few people, almost exclusively adventurers in fact, are willing to pay for that kind of information. They often end up leaning on crafting to live instead.”

  “I had no idea.” I handed her a piece of paper and had her double check the word count for me, just in case I’d fucked it up the previous four times I checked. “Still can’t believe contractions count as multiple words…some bullshit there.”

  She grunted as she tapped each word in turn while counting on her fingers with her other hand. She handed it back. “Twenty-nine words, you should be good to go. I would recommend adding ‘meow’ to the end though.”

  “What?” I laughed, but when she didn’t, I turned to look at her more closely.

  “It’s no laughing matter,” she blushed furiously. “[Sending] is a far more powerful Spell than its Mana requirement would lead you to believe. That’s because it taps into the power of Genovia at large, or at least it did before the System came. Now it piggybacks on the old Party interface, but because of that, the gods can read all messages sent and can even add their own to the message if there are free spaces.” She puffed up her chest. “Casters as far back as our people have records mentioning using the word ‘meow’ to fill gaps to prevent just that. It’s tradition.”

  For a second, I considered messing with her a bit, but the look she gave me somehow let me know that would be a massive mistake. Instead, I nodded gratefully. “Noted, adding ‘meow’ at the end.”

  “Get going. Raiju is waiting.” She pushed my shoulder, revealing far more skin than would be considered appropriate in Verdant as her travel dress shifted, and I cursed myself for lacking a reaction.

  Dominus said it would happen, I just have to wait for the right person at the right time. I just have to trust my goddess to take care of my love life. Be gentle, kind goddess.

  With a small hop, I landed on the ground and walked a few yards away as I cast [Sending]. A window appeared in front of me asking for my message and I dutifully filled it out.

  [Mom, it’s Artie. I need Galloway’s help. Send me the exact distance and direction from Chalcedony to his house. A precious life is at stake. Please respond quickly. Meow.]

  A dozen Mana drained from me as the message folded in on itself before disappearing entirely.

  When I turned around, I found Ylsa standing there, staring at me. “What’s wrong?” My body fell into a defensive posture as I began looking over my shoulders for some sort of threat.

  “Why did you bring Mindy with us?” She shook her head. “As your bodyguard, I need to know if there’s a good reason I might have to defend someone besides yourself.”

  Part of me wanted to tell her off, but I bit my tongue before it got me in trouble. Instead, I sighed and told the truth. “Cards on the table?” She nodded. “I wanted to see if I still felt anything for her or if it was all something her sister did to me. I still don’t know and it’s been driving me absolutely batty.”

  “You can’t seriously t–”

  “Plus, Dominus told me to recruit her if I could.” I hastily added.

  She snapped her jaw shut as she glared at me. “Next time, lead with that.”

  Without another word, she spun on her heel and walked around the broken tower to stand guard over our comatose companions.

  Feeling shitty, I stood there for a minute kicking rubble when a notification hit the corner of my vision.

  Finally.

  Opening it up, I groaned. “Really, Mom!?” I howled at the sky.

  [It is so good to hear from you my darling boy! How are you doing? Have you leveled up? What have you been doing the past few months? Why do]

  As I stood there, bemoaning my airheaded mother’s incapability of staying on task, a new notification hit the corner of my vision. Opening it up, I blinked a few times. “Oh, that might work.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  [Hildegard “Conflux” Sunbeam is attempting to contact you with Illusory Communication. Do you accept the 25 Mana cost? Y/N]

  With a thought, I accepted the cost and an image of my mother’s torso, arms, and head snapped into existence before me.

  “You’ve grown so much!” She squealed and tried throwing her illusory arms around me. When they passed straight through, she crossed her arms as she pouted. “I should have just teleported to you so I could hug you.”

  “It’s good to see you too, Mom.” My heart warmed. I really had missed her and Dad since leaving home. “Before we get into anything serious, how are you and Dad dealing with an empty nest?”

  The glare I received would have slain lesser mortals, but I was used to her flashes of anger. They were totally normal to me, like any other day of the week. “I’ll have you know we’ve been enjoying a bit of time to ourselves.” Her left eye and breast twitched in unison, a sure tell she was lying. “It’s been nice not having to worry about someone wandering around the house when me and his father–”

  “I’ve missed you guys too.” I cut her off. “I’m really sorry to cut our time short, but I need directions to Galloway’s house, right now.” I paused. “He can deal with a Spirit Wound, right?”

  The color drained from her face. “Are you hurt!?” She whirled around and started yelling. “It’s time to go! My baby–”

  “Mom!” I yelled at the image and she whirled around to face me again. “It’s not me. I’m mostly fine.”

  I shook my head, there was no use telling her anything about what I had going on. She would blow it all out of proportion and somehow end up putting me in a force bubble somewhere to keep me ‘safe’.

  “Uncle Galloway. Where is his house? I need exact distances, none of that ‘twenty minutes from Chalcedony’ bullshit you gave me as a kid.”

  To her credit, she calmed down in far less time than she would have if I were there with her. It just took me giving her a rough synopsis of what I’d been doing since I left to get her to focus up.

  “Galloway lives twenty minutes due east from Chalcedony via [Void Step].”

  I groaned. “In miles, please?” I knew we were screwed, but it couldn’t hurt to hear how badly. [Void Step] was how Mom brought Dad and I with her on vacation. She could travel the length of the continent in less than an hour with it.

  She started counting on her fingers and, I suspect, her toes. “Twenty-five hundred miles? Give or take. He used to live closer, but his grove got overrun by–” Her whole body locked up as blue lightning sprang from the area behind her corset to cover her entire body. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as tendrils dug into all her joints as well as her lungs and heart.

  “Mom!”

  I yelled at her image, but no matter how many times I tried, nothing worked. She was stuck like that, with only her eyes moving to tell me the Spell was still active, for the next four minutes when the blue lightning slowly retracted back from whence it came.

  She floated there, panting, for almost a minute before looking up and locking eyes with me. “One moment.” She produced a cherry-red potion from her ring and downed it with her eyes closed. “Ugh, her Uncommon pots always did taste like coppers.”

  “What happened?” I wanted to leap through the image and tackle her, but knew I couldn’t. “Are you OK?”

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about.” She brushed me off. “Now, how long until your companion dies from their Soul Wound?”

  My left eye twitched, but I knew from experience that she wouldn’t be answering my previous questions. “If I got to him, could Uncle Galloway heal a mortal Soul Wound?”

  She scoffed. “He’s the most powerful [Forest Shaman] alive who’s under a thousand years old, the last time I checked. Yes, he can heal a little Soul Wound.”

  “Fuck. He’s too far.” I started running my hands through my hair nervously. “[Emental Surge] might get me close, but I’d have to mountain hop to have a chance.”

  “[Elemental Surge]?” Her eyes went wide. What is that?”

  I didn’t have time for her antics. “It’s the evolution I picked for [Elemental Teleportation], if you must know. It lets me move like an elemental in addition to teleporting, but the teleport costs ten Mana per mile, with a max range of twenty percent of my [Wits]. Cooldown is around sixteen minutes too, so there’s no way I can make it to him in time.” I slammed my fist into the wall behind me. “Damnit!”

  Mom’s eyes softened. “We can talk more about you evolving a Skill later. For now, I need to guide you toward where Galloway used to live.”

  “How is that going to help me?” I felt powerless. “Unless you know how I can travel through time, getting to where he used to live isn’t going to help me!”

  “Calm down.” She oozed motherly calm and I sagged nearly to the ground. “Galloway is old-school. He told a number of his friends, and unknown enemies, where he was going to settle down. He wouldn’t have just left them all to die if they came for help from him.”

  “How?” I pleaded.

  “Galloway’s old grove is one hundred and thirty-six miles east by northeast from Chalcedony.” Mom was suddenly all business. “[Send] me again when you get there and I’ll have the answers you need.”

  I pulled myself up to my feet using the wall. “I can do that.”

  She smiled. “Good boy. Now, do you have any more questions before this Spell ends in thirty seconds?” She looked away, embarrassment obvious from her body language.

  “Just one.” I couldn’t help getting one more shot in. “Why didn’t you teach me [Sending]? I had to burn a Skill Scroll to learn it.”

  Her eyes widened as her gaze snapped back to me, but before she could answer the connection was severed.

  “Oh, the timing.” I brushed off my dark charcoal [Cinder Robes] before walking around to join my friends.

  Gabby looked concerned. “I heard yelling, but didn’t feel right checking on you since the Party interface said you were fine.” She made to walk over and give me a hug, but I motioned for her to stop before she could get close.

  “Mom did something she shouldn’t and got blasted by the System.” I’d recognize that look anywhere, it was the same thing that happened to Dominus when she told me too much in my level up sessions, only with deity level [Toughness]. “She gave me directions to Uncle Galloway’s old grove. When we get there, I need to reach out to her once more and she’ll find a way to get us the rest of the way to him.”

  Without speaking a word, Ylsa leaned down and hefted the unconscious form of Raiju over her shoulders. I pulled the map of the area up and did some rough math before copying the goliath.

  “It’ll be faster if we run between teleports, is that OK with everyone?” I looked mostly at Gabby, who blushed furiously.

  “As long as it’s through an area with trees, I should be able to keep up better than I did on the way here. [Arbor Stride] lasts a long time and I can use it to pop between trees of the same species within a thousand feet on my own.”

  Looking out to the sea of trees to the east, I chuckled. “I think you’ll be fine then. Gather up, we’re going.” A moment later we all disappeared in a flash of brown and green energy.