Just like Gabriel had said, the System’s prompt asking for her agreement popped up not long after, and Mia pressed ‘Yes’ without much fuss. That was the election process and the type of government they were going to have, finally agreed upon.
Just ten minutes later, the election began, and Mia typed in Zeigler’s name with only a tiny bit of disgruntlement. He was an active-duty military commander; he was not supposed to run for a civil office without first retiring. But she dismissed that silly thought. The world had already gone to shit, and she trusted Zeigler to keep the city somewhat stable if he was elected. She didn’t need to fear that he would overreach either in a grab for power, with Gabriel here to put him in his place if he did.
Stability was what everyone needed right now. Stability and safety.
The election proceeded smoothly from there, in a rather predictable way. About an hour later, the System popped back up with the polls, where they had to select a single candidate, and Mia once again marked down Zeigler, though she was somewhat surprised to see some familiar names up on the list as well. A lot of people would have had to write those people's names in the previous prompt for them to pop up in this one.
Zeigler was expected; Brent was not so much, nor were Aiden or Konstantin. On second thought, that was silly; it made sense that the unionists and the remaining beastkin would want someone on the city’s advisory council, even if they’d never be able to take the mayor’s seat. Brent however? Did he really get enough fame from leading the Raid to have his name pop up here? That was surprising, and Mia was tempted to select him, but in the end she decided to poke Zeigler’s name, anyway.
The voting process would go on for another hour, but Mia dismissed it and went back to chatting with Gabe, trying to extract more stories about his experiences in the Mystic Realm over the past five years.
The election finished an hour later, and both Konstantin and Aiden finished in the top ten, meaning they would get into the advisory council. Zeigler won, as expected, and Brent managed to avoid having even more stress dropped on his lap by finishing 12th. Mia wasn’t familiar with the other names on the list, though she hoped they wouldn’t cause a problem.
The following week passed by quickly; the nascent government was working overtime and was probably fueled primarily by some alchemically made energy drink, given how much they got done. In stark contrast, Mia and her family and friends just relaxed, trying to regain more than a month’s worth of rest in a single week.
Mia spent it primarily by messing around with the others, which sometimes included some light training with Camie, Gabe, or both at the same time. However, half her days were still consumed by finishing up her attempts to consolidate everything she had. All the spells she had were Rank 1, and a few more also got added to the list, with some of her older spells receiving Rank 1 enhancements as well, similar to her Spectral Blade.
Her greatest achievement to date has been, however, her first actually useful custom combat spell. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking; she just kept trying to merge the Greater Arcane Bolt’s baseline rank 1 spell circle with Arcane Blast’s standard rank 1 circle. It took a lot of experimenting over the week, and her Rank 1 wand has been made to suffer quite thoroughly over that time from Mia’s first few dozen — or maybe hundred — attempts trying to blow up in her face, but she had something workable by the end.
The primary problem had been making the two spells work together despite one using Chaos-aspected arcane mana and the other working purely with Order-aspected mana. But the final result was worth all the trouble. I have a magical pocket rocket! Hell yeah!
Mia had wanted to name the spell just that, ‘pocket rocket’, but Gabe had to ruin her fun and tell her that she’d just reinvented the rather well-known Arcane Missile spell’s ‘Greater’ version.
Gabe patted Mia’s head, unable to stop himself from cackling, which only made her pout even harder. She swatted his hand off her head after a second, giving him a mild glare.
“I’m ready, by the way,” Mia said grumpily. “I’m just about done with everything I could do to consolidate my strength in the short term.”
“Time to go monster hunting then?” Gabe asked, his eyes flicking to the rubble with the sizable crater in the middle of it where Mia’s Arcane Missile had just demonstrated its destructive power. “Have any of the others decided whether they want to tag along?”
“Mark and Camie are both almost certain, I think,” Mia said with a thoughtful hum. “Although, Mark … I’m actually not so sure. Have you talked to him lately? He seems to have a lot of fun helping out with the rebuilding efforts.”
Mia wasn’t quite sure what exactly her Dwarven friend had done during his Rank-Up, but his Earth Manipulation had gained a massive boost in both range, speed and power. He could erect basic concrete huts and smaller buildings all by himself in the span of minutes now. They weren’t just simple buildings either, since Mia could sense the Earth mana reinforcing the walls even days after Mark had made them, showing no sign of diminishing.
The only reason she could come up with was that he’d picked up one or more Traits that helped him with construction work. Long-term construction work, to be specific.
“I think we should let him be,” Gabe said, staring off into the distance. “I’ll bring it up … but you’re right. I don’t think he’s going to be the type to go out there and hunt down monster nests. I’m pretty sure he picked up a second Class focused on defensive architecture and fused it with his previous one.”
“What about Mom and … Sophie?” Mia asked, saying her sister’s name almost reluctantly. They had been living under the same roof for a week now, and she still hadn’t exchanged so much as a simple greeting with her.
It wasn’t even that she hated her or anything. Sure, she had taken it rather badly when her elder sister just decided to escape halfway across the world and pretend her family didn’t exist, but she had been an angsty teenager then, and the event hit a bit too close to home with her ‘father’ having disappeared just a few years before. But there was no hatred there. Not anymore. Mia never had as close a sibling relationship with Sophie as she had with Gabe, and what little there was had long since crumbled to ash over the half-decade they hadn’t so much as exchanged postcards.
Now everything was just so incredibly … awkward. It may have been childish, but Mia felt she had enough on her plate already and did nothing to ‘mend bridges’ as it were. Not that there was much in the way of bridges to be mended, anyway. It wasn’t important. Mia had long learned that just because she shared a blood relation with someone didn’t mean that she’d get along with them, had to respect them, or even like them.
“You’d know how Mom feels about all this better than I.” Gabe shrugged. “As for Sophie? She's a bit too behind the others to go outside the city, even if she wants to. I’m not sure about her, but I think she’s been seriously considering joining the city’s militia to get some Levels.”
Mia wasn’t too sure about her mother, but she was sure that Brent would see the benefit of advancing further and that the two of them would be able to convince Helene as well. Mia’d gotten her risk aversion from her mother; she was sure of that, but these risks had to be taken. Gabe’s reasoning had been … worrying, but very convincing. They had to keep ahead of the curve or be buried in a mass of Rank 4 monsters a few years down the line.
Then again, these last few weeks have changed me a lot, and those Will stat points are doing some good work. For all I know, Mom is the same, and she just hides it better.
“Nikki is probably out, though,” Mia said, giving her brother a look. “You still creep her out.”
“I haven’t done anything, I’ve even made sure to keep my distance and be super polite,” Gabe said, rolling his eyes at Mia’s suspicious look. “That girl doesn’t need you to get all protective over her. She is perfectly able to freeze my balls if she has a real problem with me. Besides, four is a pretty good size for an adventuring party. Two mages, one frontline and a hybrid … not the best, but not the worst either.”
“Doesn’t Sparkle count?” Mia asked, raising an eyebrow.
“He would usually count as a part of your combat power,” Gabe huffed. “But if you want, I’ll consider your Bonded Spirit to be a separate entity.”
“He can act by himself and be an additional frontline fighter if I give him the right arcane construct to inhabit,” Mia said. With her Mana Familiar spell being a fully Rank 1 spell, she could now create bodies almost twice as large as before for Sparkle to inhabit.
“Semantics, but whatever,” Gabe said with a shrug. “Alright then, let’s see whether we can convince Mom.”
*****
Mia and Gabe stood before their mother, having pitched their idea while she was kneading some bread dough in the kitchen. Helene thought for a bit, leaving the two stew in silence for nearly a minute.
It was nostalgic, at least to Mia. She felt like a little kid again, trying to convince her mother that going to the fast-food restaurant on Saturday instead of eating at home was crucial for her proper development. They’d spent half an afternoon with Gabe coming up with a presentation for that.
“I’m in,” Helene said, smiling at the two of them as she cleaned the flour from her hands with a towel. “Although I’m not sure about Brent. He’s taken to training up the rookies joining the militia with surprising enthusiasm. I doubt he’ll want to leave them and his self-inflicted duties behind, even if it’s for a very good reason.”
So they could be down a frontliner. Mia was no veteran adventurer, but even she knew that two mages plus a hybrid fighter like Camie made for a poor team composition.
“I have my pseudo-spirits and Sparkle,” Mia said thoughtfully. “Plus another few summoning spells. Mass Find Familiar should be a pretty good stand-in, no? Lesser Elementals are supposedly dumb as sin, but they are still a bunch of bodies between us and monsters.”
“What are our odds of convincing him, Mom?” Gabe asked, addressing Helene instead of entertaining Mia’s idea just yet. “And let’s keep that as a last resort, sis. Your Bond was correct. It’s best not to put your safety into the hands of an Elemental.”
“I think it depends on how much time it would take,” Helene said, crossing her arms. “He’d probably be happy if he could keep doing his current thing while also keeping up with the Levelling.”
“He could just tag along every so often,” Gabe said with a shrug. “Worst case scenario, I can conjure an arcane construct and puppet it around to act as a front-liner. That wouldn’t be optimal, though.”
“When does anything in life go ‘optimally’, honey?” Helene asked with an amused smile.
“Well, if we make sure that all the variables we can affect are optimal, then the overall odds of things going to hell are much lower than if we just wing it,” Gabe said, and Helene held up her arms in surrender at his serious tone. Then he slumped. “But yes, I suppose it would work either way. So you’re in?”
“Yes,” Helene said with a shrug. “I’m not doing much of anything right now, just helping out with cooking for the neighbours who’d taken on more intense tasks and have no time for it.”
“Oh, how is that going by the way?” Mia asked. “I mean, food. I’m surprised they are only rationing a few things.”
“Apparently, our new Mayor had a lot of things running on the side even while handling that mess with the Rifts and the Beastkin,” Helene said. “Don’t worry. They have the alchemists brewing up potions that help with gardening in all sorts of ways. Soil fertility boosters, speed growth potions, things like that. They are harvesting the grains from the fields inside the barrier weekly, so we won’t be running out of the plant-based essentials at least.”
“So the only problem is meat and other animal products?” Mia hummed, glancing at Gabe. “We can’t eat monster meat, can we?”
“It’s too annoying to do large-scale,” Gabe said. “Scraping out the leftover miasma is the work of weeks. Food made from monsters was a luxury only the higher nobility could afford in Starhaven. But don’t worry about that, from what I heard, we will be officially joining the Marshal’s Faction, so inter-city commerce will open up again. I’m sure we can get what we need from somewhere, and if not, alchemists can just make nutrition shakes or whatever to handle the problem in the interim.”
“Do we have enough alchemists for that?” Mia asked.
“Probably?” Gabe shrugged. “Last I heard, they were teaching anyone with the ability to wield mana and the willingness to try what they could in the hopes that they’d unlock synergistic Secondary Skills and upgrade their Classes to something more aligned with Alchemy. I know a bunch of basic Grey Classes like Farmhand have the possibility open to them.”
Is that how class upgrades worked? Mia blinked, but shook the thought of. Her own class wouldn’t be getting a Rarity upgrade for a good long while, so it wasn’t important.
“Okay, when does Brent usually get back?” Mia asked. “And Mark too, I guess. Asking him too won’t hurt, though we should make sure he doesn’t feel like he has to accept.”
If he really got a second Class focused on defensive architecture and Earth magic construction, then fused it with his first Class, then he wouldn’t be falling behind in Levels even if he stayed in the city from then on. Crafting Classes could Level Up from doing crafting, so obviously, they didn’t have to go out and beat up monsters like pure combat classes. Hell, even Mia’s Arcane Mage class awarded her Levels if she did some serious spellcrafting or ritual work. She could feel her next Level Up was getting close after that Spirits of Duality ritual and making her Arcane Missile spell. It wasn’t a quantifiable thing like a progress bar or a percentage, just a vague sensation that she was getting close to a threshold.
“Both of them should be back in a bit,” Helene said, then gave them a smile. “Settle down, you can save the talk until after dinner. Mia, when is Carmilla getting back?”
“I’m not sure.” Mia shrugged. “Whenever she feels like it, I guess, she’s taking another one of her ‘strolls’.”
Mia wasn’t sure whether her girlfriend was just unable to stay still for long, loved to exercise her stealth capabilities or was just a straight-up voyeur because ever since they had free time and Mia didn’t require 24/7 guarding, she’s taken to sneaking around the city and poking her nose into every building that showed signs of being guarded against just that.
Apparently, Zeigler knew about it and was fine with it because Camie tended to tell his people how she snuck by their newest iteration of magical counter-intel and counter-infiltration efforts. They could have asked Starhaven Shadow for help, but the new mayor was too smart to invite the secret agent of another — possibly hostile — nation to develop their information defence.
*****
Mia watched as Mark and Brent thought things over after Gabe had pitched his idea to them. Brent looked thoughtful, but Mark? Mia saw reluctance followed by a flash of guilt and a resigned sigh.
Lina had agreed instantly, but those two? They were dithering and giving the decision much more thorough consideration. Meanwhile, Nikki had already politely refused when Mia'd asked her in private, not wanting to make the girl uncomfortable by putting her on the spot at dinner.
“Don’t feel like you have to accept,” Mia said before he could say anything and get stubborn about sticking to his decision. Mark was like that sometimes; you had to catch him before his decision solidified to change his mind. “We will be fine as is; we just thought we would offer if you had the time and the willingness.”
“Stagnating is not an option, Gabriel is right about that,” Brent said, nodding. “And you said it would be possible that I would tag along only for the training sessions I can make time for?” Gabe nodded. “Very well. I’d like to keep at least three or four days a week working with the militia and the new recruits, but I’d be up for going on expeditions or Delves in the remaining time.”
“I was thinking about starting with shorter sessions, just a few hours or an afternoon near the city’s barrier,” Gabe said. “I can’t protect you in Rifts, so I would want to do a good bit of training outside of them against monster nests and just roaming monsters first to get you up to standards.”
“I see.” Brent nodded thoughtfully. “I can make time for that, I think. Thank you for inviting me.”
“Think nothing of it.” Gabe waved him off. They hadn’t really had a ‘talk’ about him getting together with their mother, but both Mia and Gabe were silently approving. Helene hadn’t looked this happy since … forever, and Brent didn’t try to make it weird by trying to parent her grown-up children either, so it wasn’t really their business either.
As far as Mia was concerned, he was almost family. Not yet, though. She’d see whether he stuck around long-term. Maybe after a decade or two, she could be certain he wouldn’t just leave, too.
“I’ll join only if I’m needed for a Rift,” Mark said after a moment, sounding as if saying it pained him. He almost looked as if he expected them to lash out at him, already grimacing in preparation.
“That’s perfectly fine,” Mia said, then kicked her brother’s foot under the kitchen table when he just nodded along. Mark was staring at his empty plate; he obviously couldn’t see a nod, and despite being Rank 3, Gabe was still an idiot.
“Yes, exactly,” Grabe said, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Besides, you got a Class that benefits from you building stuff, right? So it’s not like you’re about to stagnate either. It’ll be slowed, but with how things are going, your defensive fortifications might see enough use that you won’t fall behind the curve.”
“It is,” Mark said, blinking and then releasing a sigh. He looked as if a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Silly idiot. Of course, he wouldn’t have to fight if he didn’t want to. “Still called Earth Warden, but the description changed a bit. It now talks about building strongholds and castles to withstand armies and the like. I already got a Level, but it’ll probably speed up if the stuff I build is actually used in combat.”
“It might very well be soon enough,” Gabe said, just shaking his head when he received curious looks. “The Obelisk’s deterrence field only keeps monsters away, but monsters can become magical beasts and creatures if they eat enough normal mana-infused flesh and mana cores. It probably won’t be a thing we need to worry about for a while, but I’ve advised the mayor to consider making a defensible wall around the inhabited regions of the city before the year ends.”
Mia had honestly forgotten that monsters could slaughter and eat their way into being just regular magical beasts and creatures.
“I know what magical beasts are, but what do you mean by ‘creatures’?” Helene asked.
Gabe blinked slowly in surprise. “The easiest example would be Goblins. They are sentient humanoids, even as monsters; they won’t count as magical beasts once they rid themselves of the miasma that birthed them. It’ll take a few generations, even in a mana-rich environment like this, but sooner or later, their children will start to be born without the miasmic madness characteristic of monsters. With them breeding like rabbits, they’ll go through enough generations for that to happen in six months, maybe a year at most. There are even recorded cases of Riftborn monsters managing to purge all miasma from their bodies and ridding themselves of the madness.”
“Ambient miasma isn’t a danger to regular people, right?” Mia asked with a bit of worry. Was that why miasma felt so repugnant to her Spirit Sense? Because it was trying to drive her crazy? “We can’t catch this ‘madness’ by walking through a cloud of miasma that’s released by Rifts?”
“Miasma poisoning is a very real and dangerous thing, but ambient miasma released by Rifts doesn’t cause it,” Gabe said, to the palpable relief of everyone around the table. “There are some Taboo Classes that can use miasma to fuel spells, which work by willingly breaking your mana. They are the kill-on-sight kind of forbidden all across the Mystic Realm because breaking your mana breaks your mind as well, letting the miasma seep in and corrupt your thoughts. People with those Classes are, for all intents and purposes, essentially monsters themselves. They are also feared because they can use miasma in a way to cause it to taint others and infect them with murderous madness.”
“Noted,” Mia mumbled. Okay. Message received: shoot any human who stinks of miasma in the head from as far as possible, and ask questions never.
“Is it treatable?” Brent asked with a frown. “You said monsters could purge it; surely it's treatable.”
“It is, but it requires high willpower, expensive alchemical elixirs and/or powerful Classes with just the right type of purification Skill or spell,” Gabe said with a sigh. “As far as I know, we don’t have anyone capable of it, though Mia might be able to negate miasma poisoning on herself. Supreme Arcane Affinity is supposed to make one incorruptible by outside energies, so there is that.”
“Didn’t that high elven twat have good Light affinity? Wouldn’t that work?” Mark asked.
“If he had a healing-focused class, maybe? But just by itself, Light mana is … unruly and unreliable,” Gabe said with a grimace that spoke of personal experience. “Just flushing your system with Light mana might remove some miasma, but it might also find some tiny nascent cancerous tumour and make it grow into the size of a watermelon before you even know what’s happening.”
Mia grimaced at that, her overactive imagination helpfully conjuring up a dozen images of just what that might look like in reality before she managed to push it away.
“Good thing we’re done eating because that mental image would have ruined my appetite,” Mark grumbled, sounding queasy. “Alright then. I’ll continue to play with my dirt castles while you guys go out and murder monsters. Sounds good to me. Though if you don’t call me when you need help, I’m going to punch you.”
“Sounds good to me.” Mia smiled. All things considered, this talk had gone about as well as she could have expected.
“And Gabe?” Mark spoke up, looking hesitant for a moment before steeling himself. “I have a … favour to ask. You’ve said you have a Divination spell that’s able to track where the nearest blood relatives are based on a drop of blood.”
Gabe nodded grimly, his demeanour matching Mark’s in severity even though he probably wasn’t sure where this was going. Mia could make an educated guess, though, and her eyes widened briefly.
“Can you find my parents?” Mark asked, his voice heavy with emotion as he stared at Gabe. “Or at least … tell me whether they are even alive. I want- No, I need to know.”