“So, to him, adventuring is just a parade of people telling you how great you are and handing you sacks of cash.”

“Exactly. I’m not saying the rest of us can’t get there, but Rufus never even saw the low rungs of the ladder. The things we’re teaching you now, he was learning from the womb.”

“Then if I’m going to catch up, we should probably get back to the lesson,” Jason said.

“I like the ambition,” Farrah said. “First, let me take you through the process. As I said, we start with projection to learn the basics, then move on to restraining. Once you can do both of these to an acceptable level, we introduce more sophistication. Things like focusing on one person or hiding aspects of your aura while projecting. That culminates in projecting and restraining at the same time.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, for example, just say you’ve hidden yourself, but you want to use your aura. So you blanket the area with your aura ability, but hide your presence within it.”

“Sounds like a good intimidation tactic,” Jason said. “They know you’re around, stalking them, but can’t find you.”

“Or you could just blow one of them up,” Farrah said. “I find that intimidates the survivors just fine.”

“You’re a very aggressive person.”

“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying your work.”

“There is when your work is killing people.”

“I was talking about monsters,” Farrah said, her tone lowering with disapproval. “They’re just globs of magic.”

“But they can still feel fear and pain. They still suffer.”

“So do the people they kill once they've been around too long and gone berserk,” Farrah said. Her relaxed mediation pose was becoming rigid. “You haven't seen a truly berserk monster. It's like they can feel their inevitable demise and want nothing more than to take as many living things with them as they can. Putting them down before they reach that state is a mercy.”

“But mercy shouldn’t be fun.”

Farrah normally kept her feelings hidden behind a veil of amusement, but Jason’s attitude had stripped it away.

“It’s easy to moralise when you aren’t even an adventurer yet,” Farrah told him, pointing her finger. “You don’t understand the price of what we do. I want to see how you feel a year from now. How many monsters will you have killed with those powers of yours? How many people? Your abilities are all about slow, horrible death.”

She got up, glaring at Jason as she brushed down her pants with her hand.

“That’s enough training for today,” she said. “Put away the mats.”

She marched out of the yard through the gate in the wall, leaving Jason sitting alone.

“That turned heavy, fast,” he told himself. “Good job, idiot.”

41. Vulnerable and Exposed

41

Vulnerable and Exposed