Everyone had taken a few minutes for cleanup and recovery once it was confirmed that no more undead lingered in the area. No one was seriously injured, but a top-up of HP from Chip kept everyone in peak condition. Lindle helped Humphrey pick up his arrows, especially his artifact ones, which would have just been silly to leave lying around where any other ranger could find them. That went quickly between Humphrey’s perception and Lindle’s ethos sense, and Lindle afterwards took his pick of the Talonspears' feet for future crafting. The presence of undeath aspects varied based on the method of death. Still, they were otherwise all similar enough that Lindle and Notwick could get consistent practice making weapon artifacts later.

  What he was really excited about was taking pieces from the corpse of the Spear Tyrant. He wished he could drag the entire body back home, but it was far too heavy and unwieldy to bring back across the Reach. He wished he had a storage shell like he had seen on the backs of the wealthiest Soarian merchants and adventurers that had passed through Glacierhine in the past, but even the Nine-tails couldn’t afford an enchanted item that complex. Perhaps Lindle could make an artifact that did something similar? What sort of ethos would he need to create something like that?

  Nonetheless, right now, Lindle was stuck having to pick the best bits he could carry with him. Once he had made his selection, he let Thalia and Chip clear the area of miasma. He had finished fitting the last claw he had sawed off into his bag when he heard Rosato.

  “Hey, Lindle, Notwick, can you come with me for a minute?” The kitsune stood off to the side, Thalia and Humphrey already with him with curious expressions on their faces.

  Lindle quickly exchanged a look with Notwick before joining the group. Once they were all together, Rosato clapped his hands together. “So, can anyone tell me what they did wrong?”

  Simultaneously, Lindle Humphrey and Thalia leaned back, giving Rosato an odd look, having been instantly reminded of one of the shamans who had taught their cycle group when Lindle was 11. Taken aback by the trio of expressions, Rosato broke off from whatever script he had planned. “Uh… okay, I should probably explain. I wanted to do a quick postmortem.”

  Lindle, Humphrey, and Notwick looked confused, but Thalia seemed to recognize the term. “You want to examine the bodies?”

  Rosato sighed. “No, a postmortem report. It means we go over the fight we just had, look at what we did wrong, and figure out what we can do to avoid mistakes in the future. Mostly, I wanted to talk about what happened near the end.”

  Lindle winced, knowing what Rosato was referring to. “A couple of the Speartalons got away from us, and they almost snuck up on Chip.”

  Rosato nodded. “Yes. I will say you recovered admirably. You noticed before it was too late, warned him, and swiftly helped take out the threats. Still, it wasn’t soon enough that it didn’t disturb our fight. You managed to fight the pack head-on yourselves, so why do you think that still happened?”

  Rosato had transitioned back into the teacher-esque tone, but it wasn’t as jarring now, so Lindle took the question seriously. “It was my fault. We restrained a couple of the Speartalons instead of taking them down permanently, which gave them the chance to escape because we then ignored them.”

  “That would make it my fault,” Thalia interjected. “I was the one restraining them because it was quicker and more mana efficient than an attack spell, and the fact that I didn’t cast it strongly enough allowed them to escape in the first place.”

  “We only didn’t notice because we kept moving,” Humphrey added, a contemplative look on his face. “We didn’t want to risk getting mobbed in melee, so we left behind threats we would have seen if we stayed where we landed.”

  Rosato snapped his fingers, startling Humphrey. “That was actually a good point, but not the main point. You don’t have a dedicated melee or tank fighter in your group to effectively pull attention without too much risk, but there would have been ways around that. The real question is, why didn’t you think that was something to work around that beforehand?”

  They were all silent for a couple seconds, thinking, before Notwick raised a vine. “Because we didn’t understand we were protecting you?”

  Rosato smiled. “Exactly.”

  Humphrey frowned. “Huh? Wasn’t that why we split up the pack and the Tyrant in the first place?”

  “I believe you understand it now, after you nearly experienced the consequences of failure, but I don’t think you all did before.” Rosato turned to Lindle. “Lindle, when you were watching us fight the Spear Tyrant, were you more focused on making sure our fight didn’t spill over into yours, or were you more focused on keeping your fight from spilling into ours?”

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  After a second, Lindle nodded. “The former. You were the higher-level battle, so I focused more on making sure it wouldn’t put me and my friends in danger than putting your group in danger.” It felt selfish to say out loud, but it simply made sense. An errant attack from the Spear Tyrant would have been much more dangerous to them than any of the Speartalon’s joining against the Nine-tails.

  “Honestly, I don’t believe you were wrong to organize your priorities that way. I’d much rather you keep yourself safe than otherwise.” The knight looked past Lindle and his friends at the other members of his party. “I’m simply pointing out that you need to keep in mind that even though you aren’t as high level as us, you’re still capable of affecting the outcome of our fights. In the dungeon, it’s going to be much of the same. Here, we had a plan and knew our enemy in advance, so we could adapt to any small changes without much consequence. The margin for error in the dungeon zone will be much slimmer.”

  They all absorbed Rosato’s words for a minute. There was an unspoken message present. As kind as the man had been to Lindle, they had only known each other for several months, and Rosato had been with most of his party members for years. They were his family, quite literally in Dorothea’s case. Of course he didn’t want Lindle to put them at risk unnecessarily. He didn’t want Lindle’s group to get hurt, but if he had to choose between the two outright... Thankfully Rosato was considerate enough to not say it outright, but Lindle picked up on the idea. Either way, it wasn’t like Lindle would likely survive himself if a monster defeated the entire journeyman party in the dungeon zone while they were together. So, he didn’t need a ton of incentive to pick up a little extra risk if it meant not sabotaging them.

  The main lesson here was the idea that his actions would matter enough that the situation was actually likely to happen. Joining the raid would be more than staying out of the way, it meant accepting the responsibility that other people would be relying on him with their lives just as much as he was theirs.

  Having sensed that his words had sunk in, Rosato smiled to break the tension. He turned his attention to Notwick. “Aside from that, I wanted to see how you were handling your first time in battle, Notwick.”

  The hedgehog sat up. “It was… stressful. Even though I didn’t do much, it all happened so fast.”

  “You did manage to catch one of the Speartalon’s before it could claw me.” Lindle pointed out.

  They lifted up their vines, observing them. “I suppose… That was mostly reactive though, I didn’t plan it. I didn’t even know if my vines were strong enough to do that, and I don’t have a lot else that can contribute directly in a fight.”

  “This was your first fight.” Rosato reminded them kindly. “You can build your instincts over time, and even just your vines would be a great help to anyone.”

  “Plus, you could always learn some spells and techniques if you want more options,” Thalia added.

  Rosato put a hand to his chin. “Huh, that is true. Most bonded companions aren’t intelligent enough to be trained to learn spells or techniques, but you certainly don’t have that problem. Though I don’t know how many techniques are available for vine-wielding stone hedgehogs.”

  “You’d be surprised. Druids don’t lose access to our aura pool when we wildshape, after all, though only specialists spend enough time to learn any more than one or two for their favorite forms.” Thalia mused.

  “The Wolven caravan trains their animals with a couple of basic aura techniques,” Humphrey said. “There should be enough knowledge floating around between the two to build some workable techniques.”

  “Yeah, Madam Holly would certainly take it as a challenge, and if you learned [Flow], you wouldn’t even really need to build up your instincts,” Lindle exclaimed, but his smile faded a little when Notwick shifted uncomfortably. “What’s wrong?”

  “That technique… I know I said it earlier, but your thoughts and emotions just feel weird when you have it active. I’m not sure how to describe it.”

  “What do you mean?” Notwick shrugged, and Lindle had a thought. “Hold on, how about this?” Lindle activated [Flow] and waited a couple moments, though to his perspective it was closer a minute than not. “How did it feel?”

  Notwick tilted their head. “Different. You’ve actually used that technique around the house a few times, so I’ve felt it before. But comparing it now to before, when you were fighting, your thoughts felt more… angry? No, not angry… maybe harsh? Like you were upset but also excited, and also didn’t care?” They struggled to find the right words. “You were still definitely yourself, and I felt the same muted feeling from now you’ve told me about, but still somehow, your thoughts were a bit more… red? Especially when you were fighting that one Speartalon. The one that I grabbed.”

  The one Lindle had slammed into the ice. He frowned. He wanted to continue questioning Notwick, but now everyone else was silently watching the two of them talk, and he felt awkward. “We can put it on the maybe list for things for you to learn then. I’ll ask Madam Holly about it later.”

  With the conversation thoroughly sidetracked now, Rosato decided to have mercy. “That should be enough discussion for now. I think we all understand enough to prepare for the raid.”

  He led them back toward his party, calling out as he did so. “Theodore!” The human appeared from behind the corpse of the Tyrant. Did he just like moving in and out of eye sight whenever he could? Rosato spoke to him. “Did you get enough out of the tracks to figure out where they originated from? I don’t want to need to move far enough from the dungeon zone that we need to add an extra day.”

  Theodore shook his head. “They took a winding path, but Dorothea and Chip cast some divinations, and I believe it shouldn’t take too long if we head there in a straight line.”

  “Good. Which way do we go?” Rosato looked over the lake of frozen ice and snow.

  Theodore pointed behind the knight and up, and he followed his finger, seeing that he was pointing back up the cliff they had jumped from.

  “Ah.”