Astrid watched Gabriel walk away and couldn't help but feel her stomach twist. She knew that this was a difficult conversation that they were going to have, and, more than that, most, if not all, of the party had been avoiding this conversation until now. Well, other than the recent conversation they'd had about what they would want to do after the war. However, that conversation had, rather deliberately, avoided touching on the specifics of how long each member of the party anticipated remaining actively delving, especially with this same party.
As Gabriel faded from view, the party all remained looking at each other for a little while. The one to break the silence was, rather unsurprisingly, Benedict.
"I'll be the one to start the conversation. At most, I'll stick around until the peak of Mithril. Honestly, I'd be surprised if I make it that far, and I'll only stick around that long if you haven't been able to find any other support before then. Otherwise, I'll move along as soon as you've found a replacement for me. Ideally, that's not going to be years from now, once the war's wrapped up."
His words fell heavy on the party, and Astrid caught her breath as she looked at the rest of her party. Felix only looked at Muti, as his plans were entirely dependent on where she went, and her jaw worked uselessly for a few moments. Before she could figure out how to say whatever it was that she was thinking of, Skandr spoke up.
"I think that, with the Skills I'll be getting with this new Class, it'll probably be time for me to start at least preparing an area for a Wizard's tower. Maybe, because of the new Class's name, I should call it something else?" he said, his tone trying to break the tension and finding only partial success. "Maybe call the tower a storm catcher? It'll need to be tall for me to be able to see what's going on in the sky, but also go underground to see what kind of anomalous storms exist there."
As he said it, the rest of the party made sounds of acknowledgment, but Astrid swallowed once before saying, "It's finally time, is it?"
He cocked his head at her, squinting as he tried to understand what she was saying. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and continued, "It's time for you to get that opportunity to really study. With this new Class, that's going to be even more important than before. It'll take you, at the very least, months of study to even find the right place to start to build your tower. Your storm catcher. Then, that's going to be a project that never ends. It'll continue to grow with you, and that's going to be what you do. With each level, each Skill, you'll throw yourself back at the tower, losing yourself in it, whether that's teaching there or just researching."
Skandr's smile faded away as she spoke. She knew that the rest of her party was looking between the two of them, but she didn't look at them. She just maintained eye contact with the Wizard, and even before he spoke, she knew what his answer was. Even so, she waited for it.
"Yes. Around the same time that Benedict retires, I'll need to spend a lot of time on this tower."
His face looked like it wanted to make excuses, to make explanations, but he seemed to convince himself not to even try. Instead, he left the explanation there. His face twisted up in something that tried to be a smile but failed to reach his eyes.
Muti started to open her mouth to say what she was going to say, but Skandr couldn't help himself from continuing to speak.
"You could help me! I mean, it's going to be expensive, and it's always gonna cost money to keep expanding, so I'll need to do something to make money. One of the easiest ways to make money, to get the resources that I'll need, will be in the Dungeon. We could work together, go find special materials for me. Then, once we're done with that, settle things, go back, and work on the tower. You could tach people while I train prospective Wizards."
"Do not insult her," Muti said, her tone not nearly so aggressive or accusatory as it would have been years prior. Instead of it being an affront, it was almost more of a plea. "From the very beginning, from the morning when you were drunken and in debt, and I an outcast with no one to call a companion, our leader has never once hidden her desire. Her dream, from a child, was to become Arcanite and to protect the helpless. When my thought was only to prove myself worthy and yours to survive, her focus was much further-reaching.
"All of our misguided attempts," she said, her breath catching as she stepped forward to take Astrid's face in her hands, "to adjust her expectations for the future have been selfish. Any words of ours disparaging her goal as something less than the admirable heights that so few can reach have been a weakness on our part. She knows what she wants. Allow her to make the decision herself."
The lump in Astrid's throat grew tighter as Muti pulled her head forward. The Barbarian's lips pressed against Astrid's forehead before she nodded once and stepped back.
"Don't speak for her," Skandr said, his words missing any heat and instead colored by a hope that his eyes said he knew wouldn't come true. "Anyone can change what they want to do. You can slow down."
Unable to speak past the various emotions in her, Astrid just shook her head. Skandr opened his mouth to argue, desperation coloring his body language, but Muti stepped forward and pushed a hand between him and Astrid. Then, maintaining eye contact with the Human woman, Muti spoke.
"You are my bloodbound sister. I have shed blood for you. Even so, it cannot repay the much greater amount of blood that you have shed for me. I cannot overstate how many times I have been saved by you, and I cannot forget how much my life has been saved by following you. I wish to stand at your side, even as you continue racing forward and toward heights that I do not know if I can reach myself. I fear giving you even a small amount of distance, for I know that if we separate, you will not slow down and will instead leave me behind."
"Then stay with me," Astrid said, her voice soft and hopeful.
"Victory before death, blood before affection," Muti replied, referencing that Barbarian turn of phrase that she had largely slipped away from saying over the past years.
"What does that mean right now?" Astrid asked, hating herself for it, but beginning to hope.
"Right now, I can only say that it is a declaration that victory for you and for me are two different things. To achieve our goals, we must walk different paths, as although a part of my heart will break when you leave me behind, all of my soul would weep if I were to forget the example that you have given me of following my goals."
"You want to be a mother," Astrid whispered.
"And I cannot have healthy babies inside of the Dungeon," Muti confirmed.
"When do you think you're going to go?" Astrid spoke with a quivering lip.
"Perhaps it will be best for me to leave not long after the others," Muti shrugged. "Perhaps I shall wait longer. But the time will come, and, despite the reality that he is a silly boy, Felix will follow me. I shall ensure that he will succeed in becoming my mate, whether I am the victor or he is in our eventual bout. And, despite my love for you, you will be alone."
The final word broke something in Astrid's chest, and, with nothing else to do, she allowed herself to hunch over and cry. Muti comforted her while Skandr seemed to want to come up with something to say to her, maybe to convince her to stay with him, maybe an apology. Whatever it was, he didn't manage to voice it, and, after a few more seconds, the rest of the party came together.
Though nobody had said so explicitly, the end of the Wanderers party had been decided. Within a year or two at most, everybody would go their separate ways, and Astrid would be left alone.
Now that there was a timeline for the ending of her party, Astrid's shoulders shook harder as she was left unsure of what she would do after. She allowed herself to feel sorry for several minutes, not thinking about the exciting news she'd just gotten, but it was only a matter of time before she wiped her tears and stepped back, finding a place to sit.
"So what Class are you going to take?" Benedict asked as he settled onto his heels and pulled out an experimental flute he had been carving recently. His fingers effortlessly found where he left off on improving the finger holes.
"That there is the question, isn't it?" Astrid said, wiping the tears from her face. "Do I go for a well-balanced Class? One that will let me fit into most parties pretty well? Or do I specialize, wanting to become as overwhelmingly powerful as possible? If that's the case, will I be able to find a new party better that if I went with the Hammermaster? Because at this level and beyond, basically any party is going to be pretty much set in stone. It'll be nearly impossible to find one that is just accepting new people."
The party went quiet at that. Even the thought of trying to allow somebody into their own party seemed more like a joke than a real possibility.
Before she could continue to spiral down that particular avenue of thought, a different possibility occurred to her. But it was so stupid that she couldn't actually give it any real consideration. Then, when she started to push the thought from her mind, Skandr took a long breath.
"Have you thought of being a mercenary? Or of going solo?"
Him bringing up the very thought she had just dismissed had her stumbling over her words.
"A Mithril mercenary? No, that couldn't—I mean, just think about it. There's no way. The price for somebody at that level is too high. It wouldn't be worth it. I'd just be sitting around waiting for the next job, and nobody would trust me anyways."
"And what about going solo?" Skandr insisted. "I agree, becoming a mercenary is probably ridiculous. But why wouldn't you try going solo?"
"People don't go solo," she replied, the excuse sounding hollow. "It's too dangerous. The monsters get too strong too fast, and having nobody around to help you out if things go sideways? It's stupidly risky."
"Do you think that you could fight some of the weaker monsters that we've faced alone?" Skandr asked with a shrug. "If you don't think that that's possible, with stronger Skills, then it's not possible. You know better than I do what your limits are."
"It's not a question of if I'm capable of killing Mithril tier monsters. It just is stupid for me to abandon going about this in a smart way. Being all alone in the Dungeon means that if I end up surrounded, lost, or anything else, I'm going to die."
"Not gonna tell you what to do," Skandr shrugged. "I'm just gonna say that, if there is a single person who would be capable of going solo against monsters in Mithril tier, it would be you. You have a self-healing Skill, regardless of which of the options you take, and then a good finishing Skill, not too bad awareness of the world, and so on and so forth. Hammermaster or Meteor could both be Classes that would let you delve solo. Maybe you think about it."
"Yes, I've thought about it," Astrid sighed. "Problem is that, no matter how tempting it is, it's just too risky."
Astrid didn't know when she had suddenly become so risk-averse, and she could see in everybody else's faces similar thoughts. Unprompted, a thought flashed through her mind of her standing in front of a horde of enemies. As a Berserker, she could tear through one of the enemies, her weapons shredding through them, moving even more quickly by the second, until she was flashing like lightning and destroying everything in her path. It wasn't a bad vision, but she couldn't see herself there.
Instead of that, she considered what she could do as a Hammermaster or Unfallen Meteor, not necessarily thinking about delving solo, just the specific options available to her. Considering the different options, she went through what the largest differences would be between choosing the two Classes.
Hammermaster was, effectively, without any change to her current Class and remained a direct upgrade. With it, she would be tough, powerful, and dangerous. She wouldn't have to learn much new with regards to Skills until she was actually Mithril tier, that being whatever new Skill she decided to choose. She'd have extra Skills, especially the addition of Hammering Strength, which would grant her an additional 15% to all of her attributes. In this particular vision of herself, she could do what she was already doing, just better. The change from Physique to Essence was a direct upgrade, with an addition of strengthening mental attributes for herself and other people she healed.
Unfallen Meteor, however, would be a pretty sizable change, and she didn't want to just brush over those differences. Instead of carrying all of the same Skills, her Equipment Skill would be boosted, without gaining Hammering Strength, while Meteoric Regeneration and Infallible Mind were interesting. The passive recovery from Regeneration was greater than that of Essence from Hammermaster, while having fewer healing charges. The bonus to damage that she dealt was greater, and anybody she healed would also be getting bonus damage. Fewer charges, better passive. If she ended up getting a Skill that interacted with her passive regeneration, this would be a better option.
Then, for Infallible Mind, there was a greater boost to her mental attributes than from Essence. Essence gave a 75% increase to Self-Mastery and Acumen, while Infallible Mind gave a 100% bonus to each. Then, instead of having a passive effect that would help others after she healed them, Infallible Mind just permanently boosted all allies within 50 meters by 25%.
Then, of course, there were the much bigger differences, those in Meteoric Descent and Meteoric Smite. Descent was a burst Skill, giving a total 600% attribute increase to her two highest attributes and a reduction to all damage she took, while the Mithril Body Surge would give a 575% total increase spread between Power, Alacrity, and Fortitude. Then, a massive area-of-effect damaging aspect to her burst Skill? That was great, even though it would require her to get a ways away from all of her allies before using it. At Mithril, a twenty-meter radius would be simple enough to deal with, so long as her allies knew what was coming. It was enough to disrupt a formation, especially if taken unawares. Then, if her allies came into that aura after she made her descent, they gained a resistance to all damage, and the enemies were drawn toward her.
The more she thought about it, the more exciting Meteor was, and the more reliable Hammermaster was. Glancing at the attribute growth for each Class as well as the Mithril tier Steady Load, she would effectively be gaining 30 Alacrity per level as an Unfallen Meteor, which was not as bad as it appeared.
She shook her head and, with a final squaring of her shoulders, looked at her party.
Muti's eyes pierced into Astrid, and after a handful of seconds, the Barbarian's gaze fell.
"You will not take the Berserker."
"Did you ever really think that I was going to?" Astrid laughed.
"I hoped," the golden-haired woman shrugged. "Have you at least chosen the exciting option?"
"It depends on what you consider to be exciting."
"Enough acting coy," Benedict snapped.
Astrid laughed as she made the mental selection and declared, "Let's find out what the requirements to become an Unfallen Meteor are, shall we?"