“Do you know why total resurrection is taboo?” Alloha asked.

She didn’t sound like she was getting ready to chastise me, so I bit. “Not really, but I assume this Fayden guy had something to do with it?”

“Not something, everything,” Torra corrected.

“He tried to make a world without death,” Alloha explained. “And he decided to start by killing everyone. Those he killed he raised to be his loyal slaves. It got out of control pretty fast, so try to understand why us rissians get a little jumpy about resurrection Skills.”

“It’s not just resurrection,” Torra said. “It’s that it subverts Marketh’s will. That’s why she sent her champions to form the church in the first place. Fayden was destroying the world she built for us. We aren’t supposed to live forever. When you see your first revenant, you’ll see the cost one pays for eternal life. It’s horrific. Death is better.”

“I have to agree with the church on that one,” Alloha said. “I’d sooner let a pursuer beast eat me than come back as one of those monsters.”

“Why?” I asked. “What’s so horrifying about them?”

“They’re walking skeletons,” Alloha said. “Unthinking monsters, with no hint of who they used to be. They wander the land and attack anything that moves. And they can’t die. You can smash them to bits and burn them to ashes and they’ll always come back. Eventually. They aren’t blessed with eternal life, they’re cursed with it.”

“Marketh take us,” Torra said, with a quick triple tap on his chest.

“I can see why your religion is so obsessed with moving on,” I said, “but don’t think I’m going to give up on finding a way to live a little longer. I’m too young to be dying. I refuse to just lie down and accept my fate.”

“Perhaps your fate is to learn to accept what you can’t change,” Torra said.

I glared at him. “Maybe it’s to learn to fight for what everyone else is given by default.”

He shrugged. “Maybe it is. I’m no priest.”

“Well, I hope you find a cure,” Alloha said. “Just because I think dying is better than living forever, doesn’t mean I want anyone to die young.”

The party walked in silence for the next few hours after that. We found a narrow rope bridge across the Espriss and took it North off the King’s Road without issue. At one point, I considered pulling Victoria aside to ask what she’d found so funny about our discussion of the church’s Last Rite, but ultimately decided against it. She probably just had a humor as dark as that ridiculous eyeliner she wore.

When the sun started to paint the sky with gentle slashes of purple and red, Grant called a halt. We were following a narrow game trail through the woods, but he led us to a clearing that looked like it’d been used as a campsite many times before.

“Shouldn’t be anything too dangerous this close to Haemir,” Grant said when he had us settled, “but we should still assign a watch through the night. If we each take a turn for an hour or two, we should all be able to get plenty of sleep. Who wants to go first?”

Jay volunteered, followed by Victoria. Torra took charge of getting dinner organized. He pulled out that horned bird Alloha had killed earlier, as well as the potatoes I’d given him. Jay volunteered to have a look around and gather some firewood while he prepared that. Alloha acted as Torra’s assistant, fetching the tools he needed from his bag.

I wanted to feel useful. “I can make more potatoes,” I offered.

“Really? That would be great!” Torra said. “I don’t think these will quite be enough to feed everyone.”

I checked my MP levels.

MP: 102/96

I’d only lost a single point of MP for most of a day. That told me a lot about the rate Overcharge Drain worked at. When my MP had been around 600, I’d been losing a point every few minutes, but when I was only a few points over my max, I barely lost anything over an entire day. It stood to reason that the rate of drain was proportional to how overcharged I was. If I collected more data points later, I thought I might be able to plot out a formula to graph the rate of drain as a function of my current MP level. It’d been a while since I’d done math that complicated, but I still had the graphing calculator app I’d used on my phone when I’d been taking my introductory Calculus classes. Remembering my phone, I checked to see if it had kept the charge it gained from my temporarily-manifested laptop. Its battery was at 96%, so that checked out.

Torra cleared his throat, reminding me I’d promised him some more potatoes. I apologized for the wait and summoned three for him.

MP: 102/96 >>> MP: 90/96

“My Brand has to cool off,” I explained. “Give me a few minutes and I can summon three more.” I didn’t want to waste MP cooling my Brand when there really wasn’t any hurry.

“You know, Vince,” Alloha said. “Just before bed is the best time to get in some last minute practice with your Skill. The MP will just be wasted otherwise.” She pointed to the spot Grant had been setting up his tent. “Where do you think our leader went off to?” She smiled at the look on my face and pointed to the sky. “He’s probably way up there. He’ll be too small to see. He does it every night.”

“So, when you sleep, you get all your MP back?”

“A full night’s sleep, yeah,” Alloha confirmed. “There’s no advantage to going to sleep with half your MP unused. You only regain what was missing.” She followed her own advice and started levitating that spear of hers around the campsite, occasionally poking Torra gently with it to elicit a bubble of laughter from the both of them.

As soon as Alloha explained the logic of spending down MP before bed, I realized how obvious it was. I didn’t have to feel bad about not realizing that sooner, as this was my first night of sleep since gaining some Brands that could actually spend my MP, but I’d have to get in the habit of doing it every night before bed. It wasn’t like I had a particularly hard time getting my hands on MP, but if sleeping gave me a free supply, it would be stupid to waste it.

“Seems like a good idea,” I agreed. Jay got back with a bundle of wood, then got to work readying it in the fire pit that had been used at this campsite before. He had some flint and steel and was smashing them together to make sparks. “Want some help with that?” I asked him. I held out my hand and used my Fireball Brand for the first time. All I did was think about using it, and a ball of fire appeared in my hand.

MP: 90/96 >>> MP: 80/96

“That wasn’t necessary,” Jay said.

I shrugged. “No reason to be stingy right before bed,” I said. A squeezed the fireball a bit. It felt like a gooey rubber ball and barely made my hands warm. Magic was neat. I dropped the fireball onto the fire pit. Flames splashed over the gathered wood. The napalm-like fuel of the Skill burned hot for a few seconds, then faded, leaving behind the more natural heat of a wood fire.

“Fire looks great!” Grant said. He crouched down in front of it and held out his hands. They had frost on them and his short hair looked wind-swept. I hadn’t even heard him return from his adventures in the sky, but it looked like he’d gone pretty high up if he came back with frost on his clothes. “Jay,” he said, “why don’t you fetch some water for the soup? Do you remember where the well is from the last time we camped here?”

“On it,” Jay said.

“Wait, don’t bother,” I said. I grabbed the pot Jay had been about to leave with and cupped my hands over it, tilted forward, then triggered my Condense Water Brand. Cool, clean water poured out of my hands in a stream. It only took three uses to fill the pot.

MP: 80/96 >>> MP: 74/96

When I was done, I rubbed my cool hands over the potato Brand, then conjured three more. I handed the new potatoes to Torra. “Here, will that be enough to finish dinner?”

“Think so!” Torra answered cheerily.

“Well!” Jay shouted in a sudden outburst. “Isn’t the new guy just great? I guess I don’t need to do anything!” He threw his flint on the ground and stormed off into the woods.

“Umm. Sorry?” I said.