Preparing for an Adventure

During a three-week adventure, Eleanor had advanced as a cleric. She could now channel the divine power of Selûne, the Lady of Silver, twice in a single battle. She had also learned an intriguing Twilight Domain spell: Leomund's Tiny Hut.

The spell created a hemispherical space with a ten-foot radius. Inside, it was dry and comfortable, with room for up to nine people. Any creature or object within the dome when the spell was cast could pass through it freely, while creatures and objects outside at that moment were barred from entering.

It was a spell made for adventuring. For a cleric with Eleanor's aversion to dirt, it could hardly have been more perfect.

The first thing Eleanor wanted to do after learning it was show Aaron. She returned to Suzail with Asha, the barbarian woman, only to learn that Aaron had been confined for a bar fight.

I leave Aaron alone for a little while, and that troublemaker lands himself in confinement!

I'll have to keep a close watch on him!

For the first time, Eleanor made use of the authority Lady Silverstar had granted her and had Aaron brought out of confinement.

I'm the one assigned to watch you.

If anyone's going to keep you in line, it's me!

With that in mind, Eleanor went to see Aaron's Knight mentor, Banneret Lucian Bachmann.

At first, Lucian found her request baffling.

Since when did the Church of the Silver Mother have any right to interfere in the Purple Dragons' internal affairs?

But when he learned that Eleanor had come on Lady Silverstar's orders, the Banneret fell silent for an unusually long time. Then, under Grand Inspector Ian's meaningful gaze, he ordered the door to the confinement cell opened.

The moment Aaron stepped out, the heavy chains fell to the floor with a clang. He let out a long breath, his face brightening like clouds breaking before the rising sun.

Without a word, Aaron wrapped both arms around the bewildered Miss Cleric, looking deeply moved.

"You!" Eleanor struggled in his embrace. "Let go of me, Aaron!"

For some reason, though Miss Cleric was unquestionably stronger than Aaron, she could not push him away.

Her voice rose despite herself. What if Aaron failed to notice that she was about to get angry?

After his brief burst of excitement, Aaron relaxed and released her. In the space of a second, the dejected prisoner became an elegant, composed Viscount. He clasped Miss Cleric's hand, his expression full of emotion. "My dear Miss Eleanor, you finally came to visit me?"

The guard by the door could not help laughing. Grand Inspector Ian rolled his eyes toward the fortress roof, wondering whether a stone might fall and crush the man.

Disma stopped whistling halfway through a tune and turned away in open disgust, as though Aaron were something revolting.

A faint chuckle escaped Lucian. He stroked his beard to hide his embarrassment.

"Honestly, the moment I'm away, you get yourself into trouble!" Eleanor's pretty face burned red. Even the lips and half of her face visible beneath her mask had turned faintly pink. Miss Cleric tried to pull her hand free, but Aaron held it tight, so she settled for scolding him. "I'm telling you now, I can only help you this once."

"I'm so glad you came to rescue me!" Aaron pretended not to hear and promptly cast himself as the victim. "I was trapped in a lightless hell, suffering unimaginable torment. I felt like a tree on the verge of withering. Without you to nourish me, I simply didn't know how I could go on living!"

Everyone felt a powerful wave of secondhand embarrassment.

The kid really knows how to handle women. Disma rubbed the goose bumps on his arms.

"You!!!"

Eleanor's strength surged. Scarlet-faced, Miss Cleric wrenched her hand from Aaron's grasp and instinctively reached for the Hand of the Moon at her waist. Unfortunately, her warhammer was not there. "Shut up, Aaron! Or I'll hit you with my hammer!"

"Then hit me! I owe you my life anyway!" Aaron pressed his palms together. "If it makes you happy, I'm willing! If you're the hammer, I'll be the anvil. Strike me as hard as you like!"

He was not wrong. Miss Cleric really had saved his life.

"A-anyway, you're fine now, so I'm leaving!" Eleanor had no idea what to do. Burning with embarrassment, Miss Cleric felt the heat spread from her cheeks down her swanlike neck.

How could he say that in public?

Everyone's watching!

Yet deep down, an indefinable pleasure enveloped Miss Cleric.

She realized how deeply she had become involved in his life. His family and his faith—and now his mentor and his brothers-in-arms.

They all knew her. Watching over Aaron would be much easier from now on!

She allowed herself a tiny thrill of delight.

"Eleanor! Don't forget it's Sunday! Stay, and we can go together later."

Miss Cleric had only managed to turn around before Aaron caught hold of her again. She stayed, though she no longer dared say a word.

Heaven knew what mortifying thing Aaron might say next if she did.

Only after settling matters with Miss Cleric did Aaron notice Sir Reynard. "Reynard! You're back? You completed your trial?"

"I did!" Reynard, the radiant Paladin, nodded with a smile and gave Aaron's arm a firm pat. "You're very, very, very welcome here! Aaron, you're one of us now. Brothers for life!"

"Reynard successfully destroyed a Cult of the Dragon stronghold beneath Marsember," Lucian said, stroking his beard with undisguised pride. "He did well. I hereby declare that, as of today, Reynard is a full Purple Dragon Knight. Aaron, Disma, you two had better work hard."

"Tch!" Disma looked away.

"I'll learn from him!" Aaron said sincerely.

Reynard was a Paladin who had sworn the Oath of Devotion. He had pledged his entire life to justice and order throughout the multiverse. Unless he broke his oath, he would always put his own interests last.

Paladins who swore the Oath of Devotion were powerful and noble. Every one of them who committed their life and faith to the eternal struggle between good and evil deserved respect. They were the unbreakable backbone of this world!

Aaron admired and respected them. But he also knew, deep down, that he did not want to become that kind of Paladin.

That was the rule Aaron had set for himself.

I can stand beside justice, and I can do good where I'm able.

But I will never become justice itself!

Guilt won't make my choices for me.

"Thank you, Mentor. I only did what I should have done." Reynard accepted everyone's congratulations with ease, his hands clasped behind his back. "What makes me happiest is that Aaron has decided to join us. Two people are stronger than one, and three are stronger than two. Every little step forward lets us do more for justice in this world!"

"I've never had to worry much about this boy. I'm glad he understands that." Lucian nodded slowly, affection softening his usually stern face. Then he shot Disma a glare. "It shows your senior here can complete missions on his own now. Perhaps there will be many things we can entrust to him in the future. Heh heh heh."

Eleanor naturally respected Paladins as well. Miss Cleric gave Reynard a slight bow in greeting, and everyone promptly asked the kitchen to prepare extra dishes to celebrate his becoming a full Purple Dragon Knight.

Of everyone there, only Disma felt uncomfortable.

What kind of trial was that? If the old geezer had given me the job, I could've done it better than Reynard!

The old geezer plays favorites!

After Eleanor's return, Aaron's behavior changed dramatically. He stopped causing trouble and devoted himself to recruit training and magic lessons. Each week, he spent three or four days training with the recruits and two or three days studying magic, traveling back and forth between the Purple Dragons' fortress and the young lady's villa by the Dragonmere.

Since Aaron had no intention of advancing further as a fighter, he focused on physical conditioning, adventuring experience, martial skills, and fighting in groups.

His once-thin frame gradually grew sturdy. Definition appeared across his abdomen, and his constitution improved a little. He no longer looked like the unremarkable nobleman he once had.

His new combat technique, Slaanesh True Silver Slash, was also beginning to take shape. All he needed was a chance to use it.

After the bar fight, the recruits grew much closer. They teased and swore at one another and traded terrible jokes. The three who had been sent to shovel manure—Havrel, the shipping minister's son; Norrington, a Paladin from Arabel; and Ramsay, the son of an impoverished border noble—had even become good friends despite their different backgrounds, professions, and personalities.

Aaron had earned the recruits' acceptance too.

Notably, Aaron chose a nickname for himself: "The Sorcerer Prince of Suzail."

Lucian rejected the flamboyant nickname outright.

"Are you trying to get assassinated even more often?" Lucian had said. "No. Pick another. I'll give you one that's amusing, catchy, and can throw your enemies off."

"How about 'Rookie'? Suzail's little Sorcerer rookie." An odd smile appeared beneath Lucian's thick beard. "What do you think?"

"I like it." Aaron did not object. Rookie meant a novice, a greenhorn. It rolled off the tongue, carried a touch of humor without sounding too aggressive, and could thoroughly mislead his enemies.

From that day on, the Purple Dragons had a "Rookie Salian" in their ranks.

When the nickname reached the royal throne, even the stern-faced Princess Regent paused over the documents she was reviewing to give it another look.

That covered recruit training.

His progress in magic was much faster.

With guidance from his Sorcerer mentor, Aaron first mastered the two most important Sorcerer abilities: Sorcery Points and Metamagic.

Sorcery Points were the fundamental difference between Sorcerers and Mages.

As everyone knew, a Sorcerer's ability to cast spells came from deep within their bloodline. Through force of personality, Sorcerers connected with the source of the world, drew magical elements to themselves, then projected their will into reality to cast spells.

They therefore did not need to memorize spells. The structures of those spells already existed in their minds, unlike those of Mages.

A Mage's capacity for spell structures was limited, but with enough intelligence, time, and wealth, a Mage could learn an unlimited number of spells.

Sorcerers could cast any spell they knew at any time, but there were many spells they could never learn at all.

In theory, a Sorcerer and a Mage of the same level had roughly equal amounts of magical power.

A Mage's spellcasting was flexible yet rigid. Mages could learn any spell, but once a spell's structure was fixed, it could not change.

Sorcerers, on the other hand, could prepare a special form of magical power within themselves called Sorcery Points. They could use it to enhance spells through Metamagic or, when necessary, cast with greater flexibility.

It was as if every Sorcerer had an extra reserve of magical power.

And when it came to spellcasting, Aaron displayed an astonishing talent.

Extraordinary Charisma gave him an enormous advantage. He cast every spell thirty percent faster than Sorcerers at the same level, and any spell with a casting time under two seconds became instantaneous. His spells lasted twenty percent longer and had effects twenty percent greater.

Thanks to Extraordinary Charisma alone, Aaron's first-circle Chaos Bolt dealt twice the damage of a first-circle Magic Missile!

It was more powerful than the upcast Magic Missiles of many Elite Mages.

"I don't dare imagine what'll happen when my little brother learns Fireball." —The young lady.

Aaron's reserve of Sorcery Points was twice that of a normal Sorcerer!

Then there was Metamagic.

Aaron's spells differed from the orthodox magic of the Realms. Every spell he cast had mutated. While others could only cast using fixed spell structures, Aaron could inject his awakened powers of Slaanesh or Tzeentch into those structures and change them, producing effects such as longer duration, greater range, no need for materials, additional effects, or extra summoned creatures.

The power of Tzeentch was the clearest example. Injecting it into a spell structure produced an additional effect.

Take the first-circle spell Grease. If Aaron infused it with Tzeentch's power, the grease would disrupt spellcasters within its area, interfering with the magical elements around them and greatly increasing their chance of casting failure.

If he infused Grease with Slaanesh's power instead, the grease would turn sticky after someone fell, clinging to them and holding them in place.

Metamagic's strength lay not only in its added effects. Its real power was that opponents would not be prepared for them.

It was like a duel to the death in which your opponent suddenly drew an unfamiliar, unconventional weapon and proved skilled with it. No one would dare rush into an attack then.

Or like two opponents testing each other with swords for several exchanges before one pulled a firearm from inside their coat and fired.

Aaron's Metamagic was that sort of thing. Who would expect a Chaos Bolt infused with Tzeentch's power to spawn several tiny Flamers of Tzeentch on impact, clinging to the target and clawing and biting?

And so two months flew by. Aaron worked hard at both training and magic, and his strength grew rapidly.

Fortunately, he usually spent Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays with the young lady, while the time he spent with Miss Cleric fell on Sundays.

Miss Cleric knew she could not help much with his training and rarely disturbed him. The young lady disliked outsiders, but she also knew Aaron's entire family were devoted followers of the Lady of Silver, so she never scheduled extra lessons on Sundays.

Over those two months, Miss Cleric and the Sorcerer young lady never met. Neither even knew the other existed.

In August, when the summer heat blazed, a letter from the lower city passed through many hands before finally reaching the Sallyan Residence.

It was time to go adventuring!

Go, EDG! Piglets, raise your hands to the sky!

This book is based roughly on 5E. Emphasis on roughly.

Aaron's current classes: level 2 Chaos Sorcerer / level 2 fighter.

15 Strength, 15 Constitution, 14 Dexterity, 14 Intelligence, 14 Wisdom, 22 Charisma.