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It was a given that apprentices were burdens on their masters. Even so, Saffra couldn’t help but feel she’d been nothing but a nuisance to Lady Vivi, and she’d been her apprentice for all of half a day.

Guilty as she felt, her relief was stronger. Her necklace was the last thing she had to remember her village by. Even the prospect that she might have lost it had her hands turning clammy and anxious energy filling her.

But Vivi would find it. She could cast [Locate Object], and the resonating link should be strong enough to guarantee the divination. Especially since Saffra had only lost it that morning.

How would Lady Vivi make the trip to Prismarche and back in ‘one or two hours’, though? [Blink] was a short-range teleportation spell, and even that woman didn’t have infinite mana. Did she have access to even higher-tier spatial workings?

Saffra had been avoiding thinking about just how strong the woman teaching her was. It stressed her out. That she was being personally trained by an orichalcum already felt too ridiculous to be real. The likely reality that Vivi was higher was something she couldn’t come to terms with.

Someone like her would never luck into a Titled mage as a teacher, even if the arrangement was temporary. This wouldn’t work out in the end, Saffra knew, since nothing did. But she was ready for that, and all she wanted was a little training until then. Being a nuisance to her mentor wasn’t helping in that regard.

To settle her unease, she dove back into practice. She’d memorized the spell design for [Scorchlance] even if she couldn’t trace it yet. Maybe if she made progress while Vivi was gone, that would make up for the errand she’d sent her on.

She’d been worried Lord Caldimore or another of the nobles would approach her, but no one did. Neither did Jasper Trevane. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he came over to pry about Vivi either. She didn’t dislike the man, or sense anything suspicious about him, but he did make her nervous in the way any orichalcum would. Or, honestly, any adult man she didn’t know well. But more so the first part. It was only sensible to be doubtful of people who could fight entire battalions of bronze-rankers and come out unscathed.

Saffra was deeply focused on tracing the third rune of the twenty-seventh in [Scorchlance]’s ridiculously complicated design when, all of a sudden, up became down. She slammed into the ceiling, hit the wall in the next instant, then was thrown down the carriage with such force she broke the table in half. Dishes shattered around her, and an utter cacophony of other noises joined in.

It wasn’t just her. The entire carriage had erupted into chaos.

Disoriented, she scrambled to her feet.

Had the Convoy crashed?

She hadn’t felt a thing. Rainbow sparks had flown with every heavy impact made with ceiling, wall, and furniture, and when the turmoil ended, the carriage’s wall had become the floor. Yet she hadn’t been so much as bruised.

She’d spent months as a career adventurer, and even before had been no stranger to a sudden crisis. Her heart threatened to gallop out of her throat, but she kept control of her panic and made sense of what had happened.

Jasper Trevane and the White Glove were, like her, alert and standing. The various noblemen were crumpled or sprawled in various places. None looked injured, just shocked and slow to respond. Either their personal artifacts had activated, or the Lounge’s internal enchantments.

Not a single glass window had shattered despite the impact. This carriage was better protected than some castles, she reminded herself.

“What in all of creation!” Lord Caldimore bellowed as he was helped to his feet by the White Glove, whose uniform remained, somehow, unruffled. Her expression didn’t indicate a hint of concern or shock, as if this was utterly routine. White Gloves were cut from a different cloth.

The interior of the train car was ruined. Most of the furniture had been bolted down and thus hung from the floor-turned-wall, but shards of dishware were everywhere, and the rich velvet upholstery was torn in places, revealing white stuffing.

She checked herself over. That was always the first step after coming out of a fight that had gone wrong. But she was fine. Not a cut anywhere.

She owed Lady Vivi yet another debt. It might have been the Lounge’s enchantments that had protected her, since everyone else looked fine too, but the sparks of prismatic light told her it had more so been Vivi’s spell.

Jasper Trevane was the first to take action. He walked up beneath the exit door, jumped and grabbed the release lever, and pulled.

She felt immensely relieved that there was someone competent in their midst. A second later, she realized that the only reason there weren’t two such individuals was because she had sent Vivi off to retrieve her necklace.

Saffra started laughing. She couldn’t help herself. If everything in her life prior to this moment hadn’t been enough proof, this confirmed it: Fate hated her. The Convoy had derailed, and by pure chance, the Titled mage who could’ve protected everyone had been sent off on a pointless fetch quest.

She drew concerned looks from those in the carriage, but she ignored them. The hysterical amusement left her shortly, and she went quiet.

Jasper hadn’t paid much attention. He had pried open the exit door—to an explosion of protests from the passengers—and peeked outside.

“Better to know what we’re up against,” he called to the complainers. “And people are gonna need help. Not everyone’s got an enchanted carriage to hide in. Don’t worry, I’ll close it after me, you slimy bastards.”

The last was delivered under his breath, though loud enough she doubted anyone had missed it.

He hefted himself up and out, and, surprising herself, Saffra rushed after him.

He paused as he saw her, then reached in and offered a hand. She jumped and barely brushed her fingers against his—he leaned forward, grabbed her, and hauled her out.

“If you get yourself hurt, your master will probably kill me,” he said, yet he didn’t try to talk her out of her decision. He closed the door behind him, and Saffra felt the enchantment seal the space closed.

The Lounge was safer than anything for a hundred miles, and Vivi had paid two mithril to give her access to it.

Why, exactly, had she rushed out?

“Can’t the—the White Glove help too?” Saffra asked.

“Not unless her lord orders her to, and you can take a guess how likely that is.”

He stood and scanned the aftermath. Saffra, frowning at his answer, did the same.

It was a sobering sight.

They were in the middle of a yellow, orange, and red field of grass, hills rolling off into the distance as far as the eye could see. The Emberblade Plains. She wasn’t familiar with the terrain this far north, but this scenery was iconic. A mithril-rank hunting ground. Yet still one of the safest ways into the secluded reaches that hosted Prismarche.

The Convoy had derailed. Dozens of carriages lay on their side, having torn up the field and left huge tracts of dirt and flattened grass. The vehicle had dragged two hundred feet at least—what had hit them, had hit them hard. As her gaze followed the snaking trail of cars, she saw that the second half of the train—mostly cargo, but some passenger cars too—remained upright and connected to the track.

It was as if the front had decided to take an abrupt left turn and dragged most of the Convoy along with it. With expected results.

The Convoy was the safest, fastest way to travel in the Kingdoms, but it wasn’t perfectly safe. One in a thousand trips, events like this did happen.

Thankfully, because it wasn’t an unheard-of event, a response team would be on the way. Until then, they were on their own.

Jasper whistled. “Now that’s a beastie,” he murmured with genuine awe.

Stomach sinking, Saffra turned around.

Half a mile away, a two-headed crow the size of a building was dragging the engine car in two enormous talons, wings flapping desperately as it tried to haul its prize into the air. It was failing—no doubt thanks to the engine car’s enchantments. The block of metal was simply too heavy and protected, even for a monster of that caliber. It could only drag it.

She tried to inspect the beast, but received a screen that read:

***

Inspection failed.

***

Unsurprisingly, the monster was so far beyond her that she couldn’t glean its name, much less level and other details.

“What is that?” she asked, horrified. She had read through a number of bestiaries in preparation for making adventuring a career, but she couldn’t remember finding an entry on something like that.

“Ghul-Feather,” Jasper said. “Undead type, level 1205.” He laughed, somehow finding that terrifying statement amusing. Something was wrong with this man. “It’s after the power cores, thank the heavens. Even I couldn’t do much if it came after us. Good thing it has what it wants already.”

Twelve hundred and five. Saffra’s mind boggled. Everyone knew Titled-rank monsters existed, and in unsettlingly large numbers, but unless someone went questing out into the most dangerous parts of the world, you would never actually see one. Humanity, and every other race, settled far away from such zones for a reason.

“Never mind that, though,” Jasper said as Saffra watched the gigantic crow give up on trying to lift the engine car into the air, and instead begin scraping its claws and pecking its beaks into the door. “Let’s see what we can do about this.”

She shook herself out of her morbid fascination and turned to the derailed train. A sense of grimness settled over her. Because right. Never mind the monster. They had a more pressing disaster to deal with.

How many people had been killed? While nobody in the Lounge had been more than bruised, common folk didn’t have the benefit of defensive artifacts and the Lounge’s protective enchantments. Nor the enhanced constitution that came with levels.

The collision wouldn’t have killed most people, but there would undoubtedly be fatalities—and far more injured.

Jasper was already jogging across the carriages, jumping the gaps with long strides. He didn’t wait for her to join him. That pleased her. So many people treated her like a child despite the badge on her chest. Jasper hadn’t given a word of protest when she’d climbed out of the Lounge, nor was he babying her now. He expected her to keep up—or otherwise, she could do what she wanted.

“Aren’t there people in these cars?” Saffra yelled as she hurried to catch him. She passed over a window painted with blood on the inside and felt her skin go cold.

“The rich ones can take care of themselves,” Jasper called back. “They’ll have emergency potions. Plus first class is where golds and mithrils will be. I’m headed for the back, where they’ll need us more.”

That was reasonable, even if Saffra squirmed to be ignoring anyone who might need help. But if there was a group that needed more help, then yes, Jasper was right. That was where they should go.

There were parts of the train that were much worse off. Certain sections had crumpled in entirely, the connectors twisting and snapping as momentum carried one carriage into another. It was one such grisly portion of the Convoy that Jasper stopped at.

“It’s not gonna be pretty,” he warned.

Saffra nodded. He almost seemed like he would say more, but didn’t. He looked at a window, grimaced, then stomped on it. The impact rattled the surrounding metal. He stomped harder. The glass cracked. The basic defenses of the Convoy were more impressive than she’d assumed, taking direct hits from an orichalcum. Even if he wasn’t putting all his force into them.

The window broke on the third blow, and he used his longbow to scrape the opening clear. He stuck his head into the hole, looked around, and hopped inside.

Bracing herself for what she might find, Saffra did the same.

It was…not as bad as it could be. If there was one silver lining to this nightmare, it was that the disaster had come when the Convoy was running at low capacity. Few people had left Prismarche in the middle of the festival. Normally the Convoy’s cheaper carriages would be packed to the gills. She didn’t want to imagine what the interior would have looked like if that had been the case.

Even still, there were two dozen people who had been thrown around. Most were pale-faced and panicked, wrapping their injuries with their jackets and shirts, or aiding others with similar. They’d moved away from the window Jasper had been breaking through, not knowing it was an adventurer. They seemed immensely relieved twice over—first because it wasn’t a monster, and second, because an orichalcum-rank adventurer had come to help.

The seating inside was torn and tossed around, since the cabin itself had been bent at nearly a ninety-degree angle. Personal belongings were strewn everywhere. One of the men was cradling an obviously broken arm.

Hope bloomed on their faces as they looked at Jasper—at the green badge on his chest—but the adventurer didn’t spare a second glance for them.

“Monsters will start swarming before long,” he called to them. “Get to the back of the convoy, where the aether-cannons are still standing. Quick, now. Out the back door, you can reach it yourselves.”

He scanned the space as he spoke, not paying attention to his audience. Those were the ones who had lived and were conscious, after all. He’d come for other reasons. His eyes fell on a body pinned between two rows of seats, caught in the worst way by how the carriage had bent on impact.

Saffra had seen corpses, and had seen people killed. In less kind ways than this. At least this one had been fast. Still, she wasn’t some war veteran who had spent years on the front lines. She forced herself to stay calm. Panic made a person worse than useless.

Jasper went for the man, and Saffra jogged after him, while also looking through the rest of the carriage for anyone else who might need help. But miraculously, the only casualty seemed to be the one.

She grimaced as she watched Jasper slide between the seats. The man’s torso was bent over one of the chairs. There was no way he was—

“He’s alive,” Jasper said, and Saffra looked at him in horror. He patted the man on the cheek, but received no response. “There’ll be at least one gold-rank [Healer] in the Convoy, a mithril if we’re lucky, but it’s going to take time for everyone to organize. I’m not sure we can do anything for this one.”

He shrugged and slid out. The callousness—even if Saffra knew pragmatism was necessary when dealing with a disaster of this scale—stunned her. She couldn’t accuse him of not caring, not after how he’d left the Lounge to come help with the aftermath, but she blurted out, “Don’t you have a potion or something?”

It was only then that Saffra remembered she had a potion. The realization struck her dumb.

Jasper looked over his shoulder. “The only ones that could fix a crushed spine,” he said, thumbing at the pinned man, “I need to keep for myself. If I use one of my emergency potions and don’t have it when I need it, I might kill the entire Convoy in turn. No. My potions are for me.”

It was the sort of cold, brutal logic that, painful as it was, had to be acknowledged. The idea of purposefully leaving someone to die ‘for the greater good’ made her feel sick though.

“I have one,” Saffra mumbled. “But I don’t know if…”

Jasper’s brow furrowed. It took a moment, but he was a sharp man. He drew the correct conclusion. “Your mentor. She gave you an emergency potion.”

It was hardly an unusual practice, hence the quick deduction. “I think it’s really strong, too. She said I would have to dilute it if I wanted to use it.”

He frowned. “Dilute it? A single drop of water might cut a potion’s potency in half. She told you to do that?”

“I’m nearly gold rank, and she said it would have to be diluted ‘a lot’.”

He raised his eyebrows, then turned considering. “If true, it’s strong. Something that might even fix that.” He glanced at the mangled man.

“Yeah.”

“But a potion like that is beyond valuable. The sort of relic even I can’t get my hands on.”

Saffra’s shoulders slouched. “Yeah.”

He studied her, then finished stating the problem: “I can’t imagine many masters would be okay with their apprentice using their emergency potion on a stranger. Especially a relic-class potion. She gave it to you, for you. For your emergency.”

Saffra closed her eyes.

Jasper rolled his jaw. He looked at the unconscious man who would surely be dead soon.

“Well, it’s yours, not mine. Make your decision,” he said, not unkindly. “He doesn’t have long.”

Saffra hesitated.

Then, obviously, she withdrew the potion.

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