I dust myself off and give Sadie a snarl. “Listen here, Yoda, if you don’t have helpful advice, keep it to yourself.”

  “Are you asking for my advice?” Sadie asks, arms crossed.

  “Do you have any?” I snap.

  “Jes is equipped for grappling range. That cestus does no good out of reach. Your spear is much longer, even longer than her labrys. She’s designed for nose-to-nose encounters and when the distance doesn’t suit her, she goes invisible or teleports. The akon aren’t very powerful, they’re more a distraction so she can close in. Your gear and skills are focused on mid-range, with a reach weapon. If you’re going to start standing next to her, you’re going to lose.”

  Well, I did ask.

  “You’re telling me, if I back away, I have a chance?” I say, already taking a huge step back.

  There’s a funny buzz noise and Jes is standing inches from me, so my spear point actually extends behind her. I take another step back. She does it again, somehow covering the distance between us without really taking any steps.

  “Cut that out,” I say.

  Then I realize. No power is free. She must be spending vitality, pneuma, or some magic fuel. I take a few more steps back, taunting her closer while I retreat in a semi-circle. She repeatedly snaps next to me and pulls a punch to my chest. I’m sure if she extended those spikes and used full power, I’d be a mess.

  According to Sun Tzu, I am not retreating, I am taking ground backwards.

  She lunges. She doesn’t use the slip. She must be running out of power. I take a big step back, but I extend my spear toward her. She stops her forward step before she jumps into my spear. Her eyes are cold and calculating.

  She’s swinging the labrys to parry my spear away. I allow the smack to spin me, take a step back, and again, extend my spear to keep her at bay. I shuffle forward and she retreats. She’s drained whatever battery she has.

  “Looks like a stalemate now,” she says.

  “Is it?” I smile. I use the hand signal, Baco charges and Jes is soon in the air over his back.

  “Meet my arsenal,” I say as her back hits the floor.

  Sadie flicks an ash, not much bigger than from a cigar, and it lands on Jes’ breastplate. “Make believe that was a flaming ball, big as your head. That’s one for Team Dom.”

  Brigadier Baco spins in a lardy little victory dance.

  Jes gets up. “Fair enough. If we fight together, I take the close range with the pig, you stay mid range, the satyr throws fire.”

  “We have names,” Sadie snaps.

  Jes holds up her hands. “Sadie and Baco. Dom, do you have a way to retrieve that spear if you throw it?”

  I shake my head. “Not that I’ve discovered. But it does this.”

  I extend it into javelin form.

  Jes’ eyes go wide. “Now that’s some handy magic you have there. Does that lower your goet?”

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  “Goet?” Here’s a new one for me.

  “Goeteia,” Sadie says. “Jes converts vitality to goeteia for magical spell effects.”

  “Spell points,” Jes clarifies. “When I ask the system, that’s what it calls them.”

  Sadie opens her mouth to say something, and I hastily break in.

  “Which you ran out of after slipping up to me too many times,” I say. “No, the spear kind of does itself.”

  “Why are pneuma and spell points—goet—different from vitality?” Jes asks.

  “Pneuma is for summoning,” Sadie explains. “Dom’s horns let him convert vitality to pneuma for summoning better. But if he cast something like your slipgates, it would cost more direct vitality for him.”

  Jes grunts. “Slip gates are easier for me to do on myself. Way more strain to do others. I thought I would be clever and start dropping satyrs from the ceiling. Goes through my reserves and then starts hitting my vitality. I can do it, but I get weak.”

  “You have to pay more for targets with more vitality,” Sadie says. “I don’t math very well, so I don’t know the numbers, but bigger and stronger targets cost you more, and way, way more if they resist.”

  “If I can do it so fast they don’t have time to resist?” Jes thinks out loud.

  Sadie shrugs. “That might work; I’m not sure. You would have to ask someone with more experience moving people around.”

  I think I get it. “Vitality is our life force. But if I have, say, a magic wand, one point of life might become three points of magic, but not summoning. My horns convert my vitality into pneuma more efficiently than before. Technically, Sadie is made of pneuma. But if I do another magic skill, like my psychic translocation, that’s a direct pull from my vitality pool, since I don’t have a spell point pool. I’m better at using my vitality at summoning than anything else…though it’s still not a pleasant feeling.”

  Sadie looks surprised. “That’s exactly how it works.”

  I nod at Jes. “I know things.”

  “Do you know how to return to Earth?”

  I close my eyes. “I don’t.”

  She slings her labrys over her back and does some weird pulling a shade down kind of gesture.

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “Checking my skills, see if our little back and forth did anything.”

  “Since you weren’t actually fighting for kills, you will level up, but more slowly,” Sadie inserts.

  “Checking your skills?” I ask.

  “Sure,” Jes says, reading nothing in the air before her. “Skill table.”

  I look at Sadie. “Skill table?”

  “I was just about to show you that,” Sadie says quickly. She crosses her arms out in front of her, fists by elbows, snaps her hands open and then spreads her arms up and down, miming opening something.

  “About to show me,” I grumble, mimicking her motions.

  Holy. Freaking. Moly.

  Melee (Offensive)

  Grapple: 2 (Emerging)

  Impale: 4 (Emerging)

  Improvised Weapon: 2 (Emerging)

  Lunge: 6 (Emerging)

  Melee (Defensive)

  Block: 4 (Emerging)

  Flair Weapon: 3 (Emerging)

  Spinning Dodge: 3 (Emerging)

  Ranged

  Catch Weapon: 1 (Emerging)

  Javelin Throw: 3 (Emerging)

  Spells (Summoning) (Horns of Conviction: 50% sustain bonus)

  Domination: 3 (Emerging)

  Psychic Translocation: 1 (Emerging)

  Re-Emerge: 1 (Emerging)

  Summon Boar: 1 (Emerging)

  Summon Satyr: 4 (Emerging)

  Spells (Offensive)

  Life Siphon: 2 (Emerging)

  Utility

  Assess Enemy: 3 (Emerging)

  Cartography: 1 (Emerging)

  Combat Communication: 4 (Emerging)

  Cooking: 2 (Emerging)

  Hard Landing: 1 (Emerging)

  Inspect: 4 (Emerging)

  Perception: 5 (Emerging)

  Power Drop: 1 (Emerging)

  Salvewright: 1 (Emerging)

  My vision is completely obscured by the words projected in front of me. Psychic Translocation and Re-Emerge are for when I enter one of my bondlings. Cartography must be trying to map with the chalk.

  “Flair Weapon?”

  Before I finish saying it, I’m twirling my spear like a baton, pass it around my waist and return to a ready stance.

  “Oh, that.”

  Lunge must be my basic thrust with the spear, which is a six, my highest rating. Makes sense, since that’s the action I do over and over. Most of these actions require me facing an actual physical opponent. Jes’ juggle is something she can just do for hours while walking around, so she has that massive juggle score.

  “Have you just been swiping away all of those notifications and tips?” Jes asks.

  “You see, well, I, when I’m fighting, and wait… Tips?”

  Jes exhales hard. “Like when it says ‘Dangerous paths lead to new places’ and ‘Resting near fire increases your healing rate’. Those things.”

  I look at Sadie, who has taken a sudden interest in the architecture of the ceiling and reply, “Oh, yeah. Those tips.”