Ethan was still limping when returned to the guildhall bleeding from a large gash down the side of his arm several hours later. Torben had offered to let him don armor and train with some of the older recruits. Stupidly, he had accepted. Now he was even more sore than the beating he’d taken with no armor. What the hell was I thinking? Ethan berated himself as he hobbled across the room to crash on a couch.

“You look like shit,” Tae-Won and Leah were sitting on the couch opposite of him.

“Everything hurts and I am dying.” Ethan moaned in pain.

“You go find Torben?” Tae-Won chuckled at his friend’s discomfort.

Leah's hands glowed with green energy as she cast a small healing spell on Ethan. He marveled at the difference in magic types in the game. The healing from a Druid felt different than a Paladin or a Cleric, the same way casting as a Sorcerer felt different than casting as a Battle Cleric. Leah’s healing spell “grew” inside him, energy flowing into his bruised muscles rejuvenating him. It was a very comforting feeling. Cleric healing spells were more of a surge of energy, a burst that invigorated in combat.

“Yeah, how could you tell?” Ethan stretched his no longer aching muscles.

“Leah had to heal me the same way after I went to him for training the first time.” Tae-Won said.

“He didn’t have the cuts you had though.” Leah’s green aura disappeared as she finished her spell. “Mainly just bruises.”

“I was stupid and asked for a bout with a real weapon.” The last opponent had used a sword against him and the gap between his leather chest armor and bracers had paid the price.

“You know there are other Fighter trainers besides Torben and his crew of ass kicking children?” Tae-Won smirked at Ethan.

“I did in fact, not.” He examined the patch of skin Leah had just mended. “But now that I know it, I’ll stay away.”

“Battlemaster Torben is the Weapon Master trainer,” Tae-Won backtracked. “He can train anything but if you take Battlemaster spec, you’ll see him regularly.”

“So I could have learned the same skill from another trainer?”

“Of course, you could have easily talked to the Battle Shaman or Guardian trainers. You got…” Tae-Won paused trying to remember what abilities he would have gotten at his level. “Ignore Pain and Second Wind?”

Ethan nodded feeling suddenly foolish, he should have asked around more before trusting the first little girl that he talked to.

“Any of the Fighter trainers could have taught you that.” Tae-Won looked concerned at his friend for a beat. “You feeling okay? You should have known that. Class trainers can teach you anything except for spec specific abilities.”

“I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.” Tae-Won was right, he’d never forgotten before that he could see any trainer he wanted. But he wasn’t ready to tell anyone about his conversation with Sam from right before he’d gone for training. That was an emotional bag of worms he didn’t want to open just yet.

“Hmm…” Tae-Won considered him for a second trying to decide if Ethan was hiding something or if he’d really just forgotten.

“How was you guys’ day? Get anything good?” Ethan quickly changed the subject, something about the way Tae-Won was looking at him was just a little too insightful.

“You’ll have to wait and see day after tomorrow.” Leah clearly got something she wanted to be a surprise for everyone. Tae-Won leaned back on the couch, still observing his guild leader.

“I hope you didn’t go bankrupt, we may have to spend more gold on repairs than usual being in The Tower so much earlier than usual.” Ethan teased her back, if they were in The Tower then they used the guild vault for any repairs. That was the deal they’d come up with a long time ago.

“I think I’ll be fine.” She smirked at him.

“Tae-Won, what about you?” Ethan looked to the Rogue.

“Nothing crazy, just some basic upgrades.” Tae-Won said. “Who knows what will drop over the next couple of days and I don’t want to waste the gold.”

He realized what he’d said a second later and hastily continued.

“I mean, I got some much better gear, I just didn’t go crazy.”

“I got you, bud. You’re all good.” Ethan laughed at his friend’s awkwardness. “How’d it go with Daniel? You guys find him a Blacksmith to learn from?”

“Yeah, he’s all set up.” Leah said. “Not too far from here really found him a dwarven smith to learn from, I also bought a shit ton of copper and tin from the auction house to get him going. Hopefully it won’t take long for him to get caught up to where we can use anything he’s making.”

“Good, I’ll pick some more materials up tomorrow morning and drop it off in the bank to help him out too.” Ethan said somewhat distracted as he scrolled through unseen menus. “If you see him tonight tell him anything we can’t use he should give to Miguel to sell on the auction house.”

“Already done, and gave Miguel a heads up that Daniel would be giving him a load of crafted materials.” Leah rolled her eyes, sometimes Ethan could be a control freak. Usually when he was over stressed about something. And in her opinion, their upcoming foray into The Tower definitely counted as a stressor.

“Ethan, it’s okay,” she leaned forward and put her hand on his knee. “It’s all under control. We’re going to be fine when we go in. Everyone is going to be ready, Daniel is going to be leveling his blacksmithing and we’re going to find someone to replace him.”

“What?” He looked up at her, he’d been checking the applications to the guild. Nothing so far was looking worthwhile. Too many players who hadn’t done any actual raiding or players who were outside the level range they were looking for. “Sorry, we got some apps.”

“Anybody look promising?” Sarh tried to sound hopeful for Ethan’s sake.

“No. Not at all.” Ethan closed the few applications he’d gotten out and leaned back. “This is going to be a giant clusterfuck. I can already tell. I hate recruiting so much.”

“Dude it’s just a temporary situation to help us level and keep scouting. Once we’re in the raid clan there’s no guarantee that we’ll end up in the squads.” Leah’s attempt at comfort didn’t go unnoticed.

“Thanks. You’re right. Of course.” Ethan stood up, “I think I need to get something to eat. I’ll be back later.”

Leah started to say something as he got up, but Tae-Won held her arm down, stopping her from saying anything to Ethan as he left.

“There’s something bothering him more than just the recruiting, Give him some time.” Tae-Won kissed his wife on the cheek.

Ethan let the door slam behind him. Walking down the street he was beyond conflicted. He wanted to talk to someone about Sam, he didn't want to talk to anyone about Sam. He wanted to recruit several new players, he didn’t want to recruit anyone, he wanted to let Miguel or David handle recruiting.

Ethan wasn’t sure at all what to do.The only thing that seemed to make sense to him was to fight something. But he didn’t particularly want to go back to Battlemaster Torben and get his ass kicked by a twelve year old year again. He could always leave town, head off in a direction other than south back to Grassmere, but if he died then he was putting his entire group behind again.

The busy streets provided a decent distraction from his issues. NPC children played in the streets and vendors sold street food on every block. He made his way to the small park that was near their guild hall. It wasn’t much, but the fountain in the middle was relaxing to sit and stare at. Ethan took a seat at one of the benches near the fountain. Back home in the real world there was a park similar to this one near his house. When he was younger and fighting with his family regularly he’d often retreated to the park to hide and calm down. For the first time in many years, he felt like he was running away from his anger again.

Is this from the inherent rage of being a Fighter or something more? His concern was growing as to if he would even be able to continue as a Fighter if this was how he was always going to feel. But, again, he didn’t want to start over. Even missing a party member their group composition was looking solid. Would it be fair to put everyone on hold again while he tried to catch up?

A weak thought of his time spent in Grassmere came to the surface. If he took the dive, he’d spawn in a different instance of the town. The quests and layout of the town would still be the same, but the NPCs, like Jerry and Mihal, wouldn’t be there. With thousands of versions of the instance he’d likely never see the same characters he’d met before.

Ethan was torn between the responsibility he’d taken when he’d first formed the guild years ago with David and Sam and being scared of where the constant rage inside him could lead. For over an hour he wrestled internally, sitting on the park bench feeling alone.

Finally he stood up. “This is who I am.” He said aloud to no one.

I have friends, I have family and I have a responsibility to get everyone here that I love back home and out of this prison. And if that means I use this rage and anger to do it, then that’s exactly what the fuck I’m going to do.