He shrugged. “Some people say that a parent or a friend saw her duel, and that her hand was glowing gold when she cast that spell. I know, I know, that could be anything, but the whole ‘Ascended Attunements glow gold’ thing is a popular story.”
It wasn’t impossible; there were numerous witnesses to her duel and they agreed her power was on an unbelievable scale. Still, just being an Emerald Elementalist might have been sufficient to do what she had. There were, supposedly, only a dozen or so Emeralds in the world. Their capabilities weren’t broadly known.
I decided to move on. “Okay, anyone else have suggestions for next time?”
Marissa looked nervous, so I turned to her. “Marissa, what’s on your mind?”
She startled, glancing from side to side. “Well, I don’t mean t’be rude, but... M’lady Sera, you’re a Summoner, yes?”
We all knew the answer, but Sera nodded. “Sure?” she replied.
“Well, I don’t know much about yer attunement, so I don’t aim ta presume. But I didn’t see you actually... summon any monsters?”
Sera shrank. “I, uh, can’t actually do that just yet. I’ve only made one pact, and I don’t have enough mana to summon it. Not even a fragment.”
That made sense, but it made me suspicious. What kind of thing did she make that pact with? The ice theme was obvious. I’d initially assumed she’d found some sort of low-level ice elemental. Could she have found a strong one? Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had an atypical tower adventure.
“Oh, forgive me, I didn’t mean—”
Sera waved her apology away. “No problem, Mara. It was a fair question. I’ll practice. I doubt I’ll manage a summoning in ten weeks, but maybe by the last test.”
In spite of brushing the comment off, I could tell Sera looked pretty bothered by her admission. I leaned into her. “Don’t stress about it. At least you have an attunement that works in combat. And that ice storm spell is the strongest thing we have.”
She nodded without answering.
I looked back at the others. “Okay. Anything else? Actually, maybe you can all give me a wish list with the types of magical items you’d be interested in? I can’t promise anything soon; I’m pretty much out of money. But maybe I can scrape some things together over time. I’d like to get each of us at least one new item before we hit the real tower.”
Patrick and Marissa looked introspective. Sera, on the other hand, folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at me.
“You already owe me a gauntlet,” she reminded me.
“Oh. Right.” I grabbed one of the papers we’d used and wrote that down on the blank side. “Do you want it to be any different from mine?”
She considered. “You can make them use any type of mana, right?”
“As long as someone else can provide the mana to power it, sure.”
She glanced at Patrick. “Right now, I’m limited to only throwing ice. That makes me a lot less versatile than Patrick. But if Patrick is willing to help charge a gauntlet for me...”
I nodded at her logic. “You could be throwing fire or lightning, even though your bound monster only gives you ice. Yeah, that makes sense. We’d need it to recharge itself, though, since you wouldn’t be able to power it with your own mana.”
She nodded. “You willing to help us with this, Patrick?”
He blinked. “Uh, yeah, of course, Sera. Whatever you need.”
I looked at him quizzically. He didn’t usually sound that nervous.
“Okay, great,” I said, dismissing it. “That can go on my list... after the ice shields.”
Sera shot me a withering glance, but I put my hands up in a warding gesture. “The gauntlet is a good idea, but it’s not practical for the immediate future. We need the ice shields more for the next test or two.”
“Assuming the dragon and statues are the biggest problems we run into, yeah,” she retorted. “But what if there’s an ice elemental further in?”
“We need to survive the dragon first,” I pointed out. “I don’t think we’re equipped to do that yet, unless we can figure out a way to bypass it entirely. If ice shields are too specialized, maybe I’ll just make us higher capacity shield sigils. And we can ask Jin if he thinks he can handle the dragon through invisibility or something. But since we don’t even know how to unlock your door, I don’t know how far speculating will get us.”
“Fine, fine.” She sighed. “But I get the first improved shield thing.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay.” Turning to Marissa, I asked, “You need anything?”
She blinked, pointing a questioning finger at herself. “Me?”
“Yeah, Marissa. You’re a part of this team. It sounds like you did great in there, but I’d still like to know if you’d benefit from anything else.”
She blushed openly at the compliment. “I, erm, s’pose I could use somethin’ that makes me hit harder? If that wouldn’t be too much trouble for you, m’lord Corin.”
“Sure. I seem to be making gauntlets into a theme, and you punch things. Would wearing a gauntlet interfere with your techniques?”
She shook her head. “No, m’lord, many Guardians use gloves or punch knives. I’d prefer somethin’ light, though, if ye don’t mind too terribly. I like ta move my hands.”
Hm, maybe cloth gloves, then? But they don’t store a lot of mana... I’ll have to think about that.
“Makes sense. I’ll see what I can come up with.” I scribbled ‘Gauntlet of Punching’ down on my list and turned to Patrick. “You got any ideas, Patrick?”
Patrick brightened at finally getting his turn. “Something to amplify my spells. Give them a little more kick.”
Not a bad idea. Might be good if we could get him to the point where he can handle that shadow monster in one or two hits.
“Amplification items are tricky, but I’ve already done a little research on them. It’ll probably have to be a single element one for now. You good with something that makes your fire spells stronger?”
His eyes went wide and he vibrated with enthusiasm. “I’d love that.”
“Okay. I’ll see if I can put something together, but you’ll probably need to help me build it, since it’ll take fire mana.” I looked at Marissa. “Also, I might need your help for your own gloves, Marissa.”