“The others are mixed in their reactions,” Rick said, forcibly steering the topic in a new direction. “Henry is a little scared of you, I think. Claire is ready to stake you out and leave you to the marsh ants. More for what you did to her sister than her, but she didn’t like those leeches. Were you actually controlling them?”

“That’s my familiar, Colin,” Jason said.

“Colin? Wait, your familiar is a swarm of leeches?”

“That’s right.”

“Swarm-type familiars are really rare,” Rick said. “I’ve seen more dragon and phoenix familiars. The only other swarm type I’ve seen is a gold-ranker back in my home city. He has these fire hornets that suicide attack to inflict a burning condition, and when they kill something, a bunch more hornets burst out of it.”

“Nasty,” Jason said. “How did Jonah take how our fight turned out?”

“Jonah can be obnoxious and strong-willed, even to his own detriment.”

“I won’t hold that against him,” Jason said. “I’ve been guilty of that more than once myself.”

“Well, you’ve earned his respect,” Rick said.

“Seriously?” Jason asked. “How does that work?”

“Jonah can be prideful, and quick to look down on people,” Rick said. “He respects strength, though. He doesn’t care if you’re a king or a commoner; show him you’re capable and you have his respect. He just needs to stop making snap judgements about people before he knows what he’s talking about.”

“Also something I’ve also been guilty of.”

“I think you might have startled Humphrey quite badly, though,” Rick said. “I don’t think he realised you had that in you.”

“I’m not sure I did either,” Jason said. “I think that might have been bubbling up for a while. I’m really surprised you don’t have more of a ‘burn him, he’s a witch’ attitude.”

“You’re not actually some kind of blood-thirsty lunatic, right?”

“Of course not,” Jason said. “It was just a persona. I might have got carried away with it, a bit, though. I felt so… free, afterwards. Like I finally started pushing back on all the pressures I've been feeling. Still, you really aren’t freaked out?”

“You don’t know a lot of adventurers, do you?”

“I know a few.”

“Once you know more, you’ll understand. As long as the Adventure Society isn’t sending people to hunt you down, anything is on the table. Fear, misery, despair. If those are your weapons, use them. If you have them and you don’t use them, you’re an idiot. Of course, that’s a generalisation. Everyone has their own opinion.”

“Humphrey?”

“Humphrey.”

“I should talk to him,” Jason said. “I don’t have enough friends to start scaring them off.”

“In my experience, it’s best to just leave him be,” Rick said. “He’ll work things through and then come find you.”

“Alright, thanks,” Jason said.