Nakate wandered through The Chariot's Spire, quickly realizing it was much smaller than it looked from the outside. There were only three main areas well, two if he was being honest, since one of them was more of a balcony than a proper room.
The first was a bedding area, complete with scattered mattresses and a strange-looking table. Embedded in the table were spherical protrusions, one large dark sphere in the center, flanked by two smaller dark ones to the left and five dark blue orbs arranged across the top. Nakate stared at it for a moment, then shrugged. It didn't seem to do anything. Probably just some old artifact someone thought looked cool.
The second space, more of a balcony than a proper room, connected to a bridge that led to a building with a vault-like door and glass walls. This area also held the ladder entrance, along with two doors, one leading back to the bedding area, and the other to the forge tucked into the far end of the Spire.
That final area turned out to be a blacksmith's workshop. A massive central furnace dominated the room, glowing hot and alive. Nearby was a smaller furnace, the same one Nakate had been resting beside earlier.
The blacksmith himself looked more like a bodybuilder, with an enormous frame and broad shoulders. But what really stood out were the strange, scale-like textures lining his face. He looked like some kind of lizard-human hybrid. Nakate just chalked it up to another strange trait of the people from Lumen.
***
It didn't take long until the guards came up with Nakate's friends. Lix had woken up, while Cole was still in deep sleep.
"Hey, did you get hurt too, Nakate?" Lix asked as she walked into the blacksmith's room.
"Nah, I'm good—though it seems like Cole is still passed out."
"Yeah, but he'll be fine. Trust me, I've seen him get through a lot worse after using that mantra."
"Oh yeah? What mantra exactly did he use? It looks like it healed him but knocked him out."
"I don't know much about Shadowcast, and some of their mantras work completely differently depending on who uses them, so I can't say exactly. But last time he did this back at the castle, it took a week until he was back on his feet. Though, to be fair, he was in a much worse state then."
"Right."
A moment of silence hung in the air… until Cole stirred.His eyes snapped open, and without hesitation he rose to his feet. It was strange, almost unnatural as if he had never been wounded at all. He walked straight toward Nakate, his expression unreadable.
"You need to get stronger than you are," he said flatly. "There's no reason for you to be with us if all you do is slow us down."
Nakate froze. The words cut sharper than any monster's fangs. "What…?" he stammered, his voice shaking before boiling over. "What the hell do you mean, I'm the burden? I was the one who finished off that Megalodaunt! I was the one who saved both you and Lix!" His tone hardened, anger rising in his chest.
Cole shook his head, his voice cutting cold. "You're naïve. Stupid. Me and Lix would've survived the Megalodaunt with or without you. All you did was drag us down."
Nakate's fists clenched. "Oh, so now you're saying if I hadn't been there, you wouldn't have been knocked out and Lix wouldn't have been hurt?"
"Yes," Cole answered flatly. "We both would've survived."
Nakate glared at him. "You say that as if Klark wasn't there either. As if he would've died no matter what. That means I wasn't a burden in the end, right? The conclusion was the same—"
But before he could finish, Lix raised her hand, her eyes firm. "I'm not wounded. And I agree with Cole. You need training, Nakate. You need to fight better."
Nakate's stomach sank. 'This… this has to be a joke. Why are they acting like this? We survived, didn't we? And somehow I'm still the burden?'
"What do you mean not hurt? Look a— where did your wounds go?"
"I don't know what you're talking about?" Lix replied.
The way she said it made Nakate's stomach twist. It felt like he was being lied to—like Cole and Lix were using him for some sick joke...
A heavy silence hung in the room again. Nakate clenched his jaw, forcing himself to swallow his anger. Finally, he muttered, "Fine. I'll do it. I'll train here at the Spire."
***
They reached the balcony-like bridge of the Spire. A strange woman stood at her table, scribbling notes and studying something intently.
Next to her was a plot of sand, it looked like she was conducting some kind of research.
The researcher is exaggeratedly gesturing at her work, clutching the bridge of her nose. "Come on, you blasted things... I don't know what you all want anymore! I've changed your temperature, your food, for Lumen's sake, I've tried a bit of kelp interior decoration! Do you want sandy silt or silty sand, or some secret third thing?? it's been near six hours now, you've had more than enough time!! Why aren't you doing what you're meant to be doing!?"
Nakate started to walk up to her. Noticing his intrusion, she swiftly pursed her lips. She was deeply focused on painstakingly sorting grains of sand.
Nakate carefully touched her shoulder. She spun around angrily and thrust an empty notebook at him. "There. You won't need anything else from me. Just let me focus."
"Sure…" Nakate answered and stepped back, looking at the notebook. Somehow, it had etched his name on the cover, and the first page contained a slot for the same card he'd received at the Adventurers' Guild back when he was in the Lumen.
He placed the card into the slot, and a description appeared beneath it as the card mysteriously vanished.
'An old relic of the past, now cursed by a visionshaper.'
The stats from the card were engraved where he had placed it, and the notebook seemed to function just like the card—but with space for far more information.