Leaving Jerrick in the middle of a leech circle, Jason took Dean to show him what actual adventurers did. His fergax summon was a powerful, but solitary threat. Jason quickly identified Dean’s problem while on a notice for a small humanoid monster called a pixelax. Quick creatures with emaciated limbs and long, sharp fingers, they were around a metre tall and appeared in large groups. They swarmed over Dean’s summon, which occupied many of them, but others made straight for Dean, who started to panic.

Jason swept in to handle them, sword flashing. His afflictions were of little point against the frail monsters, so he didn’t bother. Their pointed fingers made little headway against his armour and they fell to a well-placed sword stroke. Between Jason and the fergax, the pixelaxes were made short work of.

“Who names these monsters?” Jason wondered aloud as he used crystal wash to clean himself off.

“I don’t know,” Dean said, still shaken.

“Someone overly enamoured with the letter X, apparently. We had a phase like that where I come from.”

Dean gave Jason a strange look and Jason realised it probably didn’t translate well.

“The good news,” Jason said, “is that the problem keeping you from being a decent adventurer is quite evident. I know someone at the Adventure Society who can get you assigned to the right contracts to work through it. If that’s still what you want.”

Dean nodded, hesitant, but forcing himself to be determined.

“I can’t go back to what I was doing.”

“Good man.”

As they drew closer to the city, Jason was surprised to find church of the Healer members in multiple towns and villages. It was a pleasant surprise, letting Jason hasten his journey without leaving sick people untreated behind him. Finally, they reached Greenstone and started making their way through Old City.

“I have to assume that Clementson got word ahead to Thadwick,” Jason said. “We didn’t exactly make great time through the delta. You have family here in Old City, right?”

“That’s right,” Dean said. “We build and maintain devices that use water quintessence. It’s a decent living, which is how they managed to afford a full set of essences for me.”

His head fell.

“I haven’t seen them in a while. I let them down pretty badly.”

“Take it from someone further away from family than you can imagine,” Jason said. “Don’t let pride keep you away. If I leave you and Jerrick there until I sort things out, will that be alright? Can you handle him?”

“I can do that,” Dean said determinedly. “We may not be one of the big-time families, but our compound is secure enough. Thadwick’s people wouldn’t move on it unless Thadwick himself was with them, and the whole point of him using us was to keep his hands clean.”