[Brawling]


    You can throw an elbow, knee or punch, you can take a bunch of the same, and you have the most basic sense of unarmed battles around you. Brawling isn’t just the act of beating your opponent, it’s knowing how to beat them without killing them. If you kill them, they won’t learn nothing.


    Kaden fell back, hitting the packed snow hard, and rolled right, careful not to use [Moment of Speed]. He shot forward, driving his shoulder into his opponent’s stomach. The man brought his fists down on Kaden’s spine and brought a knee up, aiming for his face.


    Instead, Kaden pushed against the knee and used the momentum to slam his forehead into the man’s nose, then stepped right as another Beserker attempted to ensure Kaden would never raise a family. His kick hit Kaden in the thigh and he rewarded the man with an elbow to the nose.


    Kaden understood now, why the clan fought like this. Without the fear of his blows killing, he was free to embrace the battle, accept the pain, the adrenaline—and at moments, pure joy. Somewhere just out of range, Trella was shouting encouragement. Ashi was shouting threats about what, exactly she’d do to his opponents. That was probably Eve running interference, clutching Vip under one arm and holding Ashi back with the other.


    The moment of inattention cost Kaden as a boot caught him in the head and a knee landed in his back. “Enough!” Kaden raised his hand—and rolled over, spitting out blood and laughing.


    Two hands helped him stand. His chest hurt, his thigh ached, his back throbbed where the knee had struck, and Kaden wouldn’t trade it for the world. He couldn’t say when the sun had set, or when the Resyr had lit torches.


    He stumbled out of the fight box and held up a hand as Eve reached for him. “Just the bones. And the kidneys.”


    The pain was real and the adrenaline left him shakey, but while he felt it, Kaden picked up Trella and kissed her. This wouldn’t protect him against monsters or make him a better battler, but it left him freer. Lighter.


    And his [Frost] count had risen to nearly forty.


    Yet, he knew instinctively that climbing back into a fight wouldn’t help. He’d found a connection to something primal and deep. What Kaden assumed was impulsiveness among beserkers was embracing moments of opportunity.


    Winning would have been better but losing was still real.


    “Your lip is bleeding,” Trella said.


    It was fine. Kaden picked her up again, this time with both hands. “Bet you can’t get away from me.”


    Trella gasped in mock shock. “I’m a [Shadow Blade]. It’s dark.”


    “So you don’t think you can get away either?” He leaned down to kiss her—and Trella was gone, just behind him.


    [Moment of Speed] let him spin and dive, bursting through her Dark Deception and leaping away as the Deception Echo tried to catch him. Fingers traced his neck—and Kaden reached through a Portal just in front of him to grab Trella, who twisted from his grasp and [Shadow Stepped] away. “Got to be faster than that!”


    “I am!” He didn’t hesitate, chasing her through the village, leaping through portals and dodging swipes, until he caught her hand—and she twisted toward him, a grin of wild joy on her face, and the smile on her lips echoed in her eyes. “Caught you.”


    “Did you?” she asked.


    “I think I did.” Instead of picking her up, he pulled, leading her downstairs to the groundhouse. “We have time. The fights will go until midnight.”


    “You need until midnight?” She asked, letting herself be pulled along.


    “Yes, if I do it right.”


    ###


    He lay with his arms wrapped around Trella, letting her snooze up against him, a fur packed against his chest so the bitter cold in him didn’t hurt her. Her breath came easy and slow, but she wasn’t sleeping. “I was afraid. When you were gone, I was so afraid. You only had to go because I can’t make the [Fire Soul] potion. Not to save Sara. Not to save you. I was seriously contemplating taking [Alchemist] as another class just so I can make it.”


    “You haven’t made it yet. If you have to try a thousand times, you try a thousand times.”


    Trella sighed in frustration. “Purify, warm ambient mana, isolate essence, add essence, invert essence, explode essence, repeat. Guess which step doesn’t belong? I can’t repeat because I can’t do it the first time.”If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    It wasn’t time to be sad. “I know something else we could repeat. How about I invert you over and over until you just explode—”


    He was holding a shadow. Trella was on her feet, dashing to toss a shivering [Letydir] over her body and adding her cloak and boots. She dashed out, leaving the door open. Kaden dressed enough to not attract attention and tip-toed after her to find Trella hunched over beakers in her lab.


    One hand held long, thin tongs with red gemstone tips, the other adjusted the flame on a flask. “Purify. Warm.” She looked back to the tongs. “Now, isolate the essence and add it.”


    He’d seen this step a dozen times. A spark of brilliant blue hung suspended in the flask.


    Trella leaned in dangerously close to the flask. “Invert.”


    The spark of blue flashed to brilliant red and flickered.


    “Repeat.” Trella said.


    The spark flashed back to blue, but this time, the color was less brilliant, more frosted.


    “Repeat.” Now, it turned red but a warm glow that made Kaden want to clutch the flask and guzzle it.


    Trella cupped both hands around the flask. “Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.”


    The spark of essense dissolved out, becoming tendrils of fire that touched the edges of the flask—and dissolved.


    [Poor Quality Fire Soul Potion], [Identify] offered.


    Trella decanted it and offered it. “I just raised my [Alchemy] skill. Drink this, I’ll make another. The instructions were literal. So many of them end with ‘make more for more money’ or ‘do it again to raise your skill,’ I didn’t even consider ‘repeat’ as a part of it.”


    The potion burned his lips, his tongue, his skin, and felt like heartburn, like he’d swallowed [Wrath of the Furnace]. His limbs shook and every inch of him both felt joy and warmth and extreme cold.


    “Put on your [Letydir],” Trella urged, helping him pull off the cloak and put on the warming sloth.


    Kaden’s tongue felt frozen and thick, but the warmth inside him grew. “Frost is at ninety five points. It’s not gone, but that’s only five points from max.”


    Trella was busy brewing, not speaking this time as she focused on the flask. This time, it took twenty inversions, but the resulting potion had an even glow, if not as bright. She didn’t even hesitate. “Low quality, that’s at least better than poor.”


    This time, the potion felt like drinking burning coals that sank into his heart, causing Kaden to gasp. He couldn’t help the way his legs jangled and jerked.


    You have purged the status condition: [Frost].


    Kaden would have grabbed her from behind and spun her around, but Trella was lost in her craft, her grin as real as any he’d inspired. This was something she found joy in. The third potion flash-froze, turning into solid ice. Trella didn’t even speak, just brewing again—and again—and again. Successes came more frequently, then somewhere along the line, failure became the random occurence.


    “I’m out. I’m out of essence, but these last five are average quality,” Trella said. “Even if it takes two of the others, we can trade these. I need more essences. We’re going to have to go back to the Ice Domain. I’ll bring my kit and brew there. We won’t be fearing [Frost] this time.”


    Kaden had other plans. “The Resyr have lost eight to [Frost]. Why don’t we bring a few back? Or the Skan? We need [Fire Soul] to reach an agreement with them.”


    Together, Trella and Kaden searched through the Resyr village until they found Drokor asleep near a fire, still clutching a mug in each fist.


    “Kaden?” Ashi called. “Please, we have need of you.”


    Kaden spotted her across the village and dodged the Resyr who proudly enjoyed their beer and food. “An attack?”


    “Sara,” Ashi said. “She is weak from her time in [Frost]. And a woman her size should not be so hard to lift.”


    “It’s the Horror,” Kaden answered. “You haven’t tried picking me up, but with Rocky and Trinity in my soul, it wouldn’t be easy.”


    Sara had never left the fighting arena. She’d laid back in the snow with her Horror crossed tightly about her, and her gaze was unfocused.


    Eve kneeled beside Sara. “It’s not a status condition. She should be resting. We’re durable, all of us. She’s more durable than Ashi or I, you’re even moreso, but over time, the small wounds build up. Can you get her to the groundhouse?”


    Kaden kneeled and lifted Sara. Her Horrors knew what to do, and used themselves to steady her as Kaden carried her back. At the groundhouse, Eve hesitated. “I’d like to stay and celebrate. Just because I don’t want to brawl doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy time with those who do. And a little healing goes a long way. And they adore my cooking.”


    “We’ve got her,” Trella answered.


    Kaden sensed the [Ulf] moving away from the fires and the people. It settled down in a snow bank near the edge of the village and dozed, keeping watch over the not-pack, and the confusion deep within it hurt. Unlike Trinity or Rocky or Vip, it longed for its own kind and yet feared to leave Kaden.


    “She’s shivering even with the [Letydir],” Trella said. “I’m going to turn up the heatstones and make this place an oven. Why didn’t it affect you the same?”


    Theories were the only answers Kaden had. “Hard to Kill has given me so many resistances. [Resist Cold,] [Resist Paralysis], plus, I have [Resist Status Effects] from the Rot. My guess is that [Frost] is a combination of more ordinary status effects.”


    Regardless, Kaden’s priorities had shifted. Taking care of his party, fulfilling the mercari Quest and hunting the domain were what mattered. “I feel like I just woke up from a fever dream. I’ll take first watch.”


    “Sara brought potion materials and hundreds of flasks for me. They’re always needing [Status Cleanse] and healing. We’ll watch together.” Trella set to work, brewing the [Status Cleanse] potions first since they rarely exploded. Kaden summoned Vip and held her until she demanded to lay beside him.


    The conversation flowed as Kaden spoke of the Ice Domain and the dragon. And Basu. “I don’t want to just spread children like status effects and never look back.”


    “I know.” She risked a moment of inattention to put her hand on his. “I wish you’d taken the potion yourself and let me brew one for Sara.”


    That wasn’t something Kaden ever contemplated. “I knew you would figure it out. Though it was my amazing skills in bed that brought you the clarity you needed.”


    “Whatever you have to tell yourself,” Trella said with a laugh. “Last time, I said ‘Let’s go hunting alone.’ This time, we wait for everyone.”


    That, too, sounded like wisdom.