"Harry's clearly a Red Mage": Correct! I'm glad I didn't make it confusing. I love me a Red Mage, to the point that in a game I'm currently playing (Bravely Default), I spent a lot of time figuring out how to make the Red Mage a viable main class for the late game. And yes, as The Sinful and Secundum figured out, I have also rolled some elements of the Mystic Knight/Spell Fencer into the class to make it just that little bit more useful.

SimplyLokajad: I'm aiming for 80-120 thousand words for this story, though with my muse's habits, who knows?

TinaMaki, Byakugan789: *snrk* Guys, Eternal Fantasy isn't a real game. I just didn't want to copy Final Fantasy elements wholesale.

DrunkenGrognard: Not exactly FF5, though that was one of several games I'm drawing inspiration from.

Chapter 2
Character Creation

Dudley walked out of the constable's office whistling and tossing a bag of coins up and down in his hand. Behind him, Harry shook his head at the display. "300 dimma. We saved twenty people – including a bunch of kids – from slavers, and they only paid us three hundred for it," he reminded his cousin.

"We didn't know they were slavers when we took the job, either. We thought it was just another bandit cleanup. I'm not going to hold it against them for not upping the reward money. Besides, you're looking at this all wrong, Harry. Don't focus on whether or not we could have gotten more. Three hundred is still money we didn't have this morning. We're moving up in the world."

Speeding up, he snagged the bag out of the air and danced away from Dudley's grasping hand. "Half of which goes to pay for another week in the inn. Another seventy or so for food. Then there's the sightgrass we need to replace after you used it all up—"

"I wouldn't have had to use it all up if you had just worked your magic and fixed my eyes."

"I did. The first three times. Then I warned you that if you wanted to pick a fight with a flock of dust birds, whatever happened was on you. I figured even you could spot the pattern that every time you attacked them, they threw up a dust storm to blind you and pecked at you for a while before flying away. So," Harry said, giving the bag a jingle, "after we take the cost to replace our items out, along with everything else we need the money for, we come out to… about thirty dimma. Fifteen, actually, since I don't trust you with my half. We're sure coming out ahead, all right."

"Yeah… about that…" Harry slowly turned his head to find Dudley giving him a slightly sheepish smile. "I was actually hoping to borrow a few coins off you, cuz. I've had my eye on a couple of new Clerics that showed up in town recently, and I figured I could try convincing one of them to hang out with us, maybe join up."

He rolled his eyes. "I think I saw those Clerics, too. They fit everything you look for in a prospective group member. Blonde, big tits, kind of ditzy. I'm all for adding a Cleric to the party, but you need to start picking them out with the head that's on your shoulders."

Dudley huffed but did not respond. This was an old argument between them, and one that Harry frankly had little hope would ever be resolved.

When it came to fighting, Dudley had it easy. His class was pretty straightforward. The Knight, someone whose one and only job was to hit the enemy and, if that did not work, hit them again but harder. It was easy to arm and armor since they had a natural talent for just about any weapon they laid their hands on. It fit Dudley perfectly; a clear path in front that he just had to walk down whenever they got in a fight.

That being said, Harry was pretty sure Dudley had somehow bullied the Whinging Spire into giving him a complicated class to make up for the Knight's simplicity. The Fencer, despite the name, was not meant to be a dedicated swordsman. It was more a jack of all trades. He could use a sword, true, but he also had access to a small spread of healing and offensive spells, and he could even combine the raw elements he wielded with the steel to do some impressive things, such as zap the slavers' leader through the man's knives. None of his talents were as strong as those of a spellcaster dedicated to one particular type of magic, but it gave him a lot of flexibility, and that was the root of his problem. With all the things he could do, he sometimes had trouble picking out in the heat of the moment what was the thing he most should do.

Harry and Dudley had talked many times over the years since they left their hometown about adding another caster to help take some of the workload, and he had pushed for a Cleric, someone who focused purely on healing and support spells. If they could find one, it would mean he could leave all the white magic to that person while he focused on throwing around fire and lightning to kill the monsters that wandered the wilds. The issue was that the Clerics the ran into inevitably ended up being girls Dudley was also attracted to. More than once Dudley had managed to sweet-talk the girls into their group and into his bed, but whenever the relationship soured – and it always did – their shiny new Cleric would storm off and leave them in the same position where they were before.

Two guys running around by themselves were not nearly enough for the major contracts that sometimes came through, the ones where large groups were called out to drive back migrating colossi or join forces for the yearly burning of the Twilight Woods just outside Edin. Those needed both strength of arms and reputation. Instead they were stuck with minor escort jobs and driving away brigands, which was not the path to fame and fortune.

"Look, Harry, we'll figure it out. We always do, don't we?" Dudley bumped Harry's shoulder with his own. "There's a lucky break out there with our names on it. It's just a matter of finding it."

"Well, we need to find it soon. The jobs are getting scarcer, you know. More and more Adventurers are piling in. Supply and demand, that's how economies work, and the supply is outpacing the demand." Even this contract was a gem in its own way. They had been in the constable's office the previous week getting another measly reward when the report came in, so they were able to volunteer to take care of the problem before it was posted to the Job Board.

"I know, I know." Dudley trailed off before clearing his throat awkwardly. "I actually got a letter about that from Mum last week. They're having issues with minor monsters and are looking for more guards."

Harry snorted. "That's their problem. I'm not moving back to Whinging Village. They could be the last paying job on Gaia, and I wouldn't do it. I'd rather starve out in the wilderness."

"Not to mention that Dad would try to actually murder you if he ever saw you again. Me, too, for that matter," Dudley added. "Pretty sure Mum didn't tell him she was all but asking me to come back home."

He did not say that the invitation had been extended only to him and not to Harry. He did not need to.

"You're back!" exclaimed the Stellis girl behind the bar when he approached, the cat ears on top of her head perking up. "You were gone for so long that I— we were worried something had happened to you."

Harry shook his head and passed over five of the smaller coins from their reward to pay for a couple of bowls of stew and mugs of weak ale. "Job just took a little longer than expected, that's all."

She slipped the coins into her apron and put the food and drink on a small tray. "Maybe you could tell me about it sometime?" Sliding the tray closer to him, she moved her hand so that the tips of her fingers trailed briefly over his arm. "I'm free tonight, if you wanted…?"

He cleared his throat and did his best to ignore the way her ears wiggled despite her attempts to sound nonchalant. Her attempts to woo him were no secret to anybody. Her father, the owner of the pub, had given him a stern glare when they spotted each other after the first time it happened. Her mother's eyes, on the other hand, had looked him up and down in a more speculative fashion, and that was honestly the scarier of the two.

Quickly taking the tray before this could become any more awkward, he made his escape and carried dinner over to the table where Dudley was already waiting. His cousin was not paying attention to Harry, though, instead focused on an image wavering above his palm. It was Dudley, but instead of the hodgepodge of armor that they had scraped together with their meager funds his miniature proudly wore a suit of thick plate armor, a halberd clasped in his hands. An image of what could be.

"Thinking about switching out to Valkyrie?"

Dudley jumped in surprise, clearly too lost in his own thoughts to have noticed Harry's approach. "Nah," he said, the image fading away. "I don't want to have to retrain everything from scratch."

But was that the only reason, Harry could not help but wonder as he watched the glow from Dudley's Mark dim to nothing. When they had climbed the Spire near Whinging Village and touch the crystal housed at the top in order to receive their Marks, they had each been presented with a choice of two classes. Dudley could have been a spear-wielding Valkyrie instead of a Knight, but Valkyries required the kind of equipment that a small village out in the middle of nowhere simply could not provide, which was in large part the reason he had gone for the Knight instead.

This decision of which class to settle into was not available only once. At any time, Dudley could change his mind and transition into the Valkyrie's shoes. The downside of doing so now was that his Knight had matured with him, new abilities manifesting now and again and his strength increasing to superhuman levels. Those benefits were part of the class itself, and if he changed out of the Knight they would vanish unless he picked it up again. And, of course, they still did not have the funds necessary to get everything he would need to be safe and effective should he switch classes.

That was one dilemma that Harry had thankfully never had to deal with. His alternate class was the Bard, and he had no interest in being relegated to a pure support role. Not to mention, he and the Bard's signature fiddle just did not get along.

Dudley waved away his concern and gave him a nasty smirk. "On to more important things. Michelle got her claws in you yet? Last I checked, it looked like her mum might even give you the pub if you ask nice."

So Dudley had not been completely oblivious to his exchange with the bar maid.

"Hardy har. You're hilarious."

"No, you want hilarious? That would be what she'd do if I told her about all the other girls already after you for kittens."

Harry stared at him in astonished horror before scowling. "Don't you dare." Michelle was not the first Stellis girl who had made her attraction obvious. Not even in the first dozen. Dudley had a type he pursued, and unfortunately Harry had his own type that did the pursuing. It was not limited to girls his own age, either, though thankfully older Stellis women's attentions generally were not so sexually charged. The bartender and local gossip monger back in Whinging Village, for instance, had also been uncommonly friendly to him from the very first time they ran into each other when he was a kid and had even been the one person to encourage him and Dudley to head out and make their livings as Adventurers.

He had no idea what it was that always seemed to catch their attention, though. About the only possibility he had definitively ruled out was Dudley spiking his soap with catnip.

"Eat your food." The stew sloshed in the bowl but did not spill as he shoved Dudley's share to him. Harry nodded at the stack of flyers from the Job Board at the corner of the table. "Anything good in there?"

His cousin seemed to understand that it was time for business again, though Harry knew he had not yet heard the end of this. He probably never would, even if the names and faces changed. "Mostly it's the same stuff as always. One of the Alchemists wants someone to guard him when he goes out to collect herbs. People vanishing along the road from here to Cambridge. Tackling a pride of cat sith that made their home in somebody's barn. And then…" Dudley pulled a sheet of yellowed paper from the bottom of the stack and snapped it with a dramatic flourish. "I found this one."

He was in no mood for games and just waved for Dudley to get on with it.

"Somebody's organizing a raid a couple of days from now. Apparently there's an old manor a few kilometers outside Scunth that's infested with monsters, and whoever this guy is is hiring people to clean it out and bring stuff back. 'Wanted: Sixty talented Adventurers. Objective: Exterminate monsters within manor and retrieve valuable objects left behind by previous owner. Reward: One-hundred dimma'."

Harry scoffed around a mouthful of stew. "A hundred? That's it? Waste of time—"

"Wait, wait. Had to take a breath." That was a lie if Harry had ever heard one, the grin on Dudley's face making that clear. "Hundred dimma per object. Apparently anything anybody brings out that isn't one of the objects he's looking for can be kept and sold to a pawn shop or something. Here's the weird part. What this guy is really interested in are a couple of things called 'Earth wands'."

Dudley nodded at Harry's look of confusion and turned the paper around so he could see the illustration included with the contract. They were not the thick rods with the decorations and etchings he was familiar with, the kind of wands used by Sorcerers. This picture depicted something thin and slightly pointed, with a handle on the wider end just large enough for one hand to wrap around it. And to make things even stranger was the fact that it was labeled an Earth wand. There had been no Sorcerers on Earth, nor any other class. Magic was unique to Gaia.

Dudley continued, "I don't know what they are either, but it's obvious he wants them bad. Bad enough that he's offering a full two thousand dimma a piece. Oh, and one more thing down at the bottom. 'Any reagents, consumables, equipment, or loose change other than those mentioned above will be the property of the Adventurer who acquires them'. Nice of him to include that. Remember the last big raid we were part of?"

"Mm-hmm. Those Alchemists had us kill a massive nest of dire rats, and all so they could harvest the livers and make a huge profit off them while they paid us a pittance." There was just one problem with the clause in this contract. Equipment. Monsters, with extremely few and dangerous exceptions, did not carry equipment. People did. But if there were going to be armed squatters or thieves inside, that should have been mentioned in the contract itself.

He shook his head. Most likely he was overthinking it. The way the clause was written, it would include more or less anything anyone was going to stumble upon. It was probably meant to be just that, an innocent catch-all to conclude a very generous offer. "Finding one of those wands would be really nice. Two thousand dimma? That's living expenses for almost ten weeks."

"Plus anything else we find. Three special objects, and we match what we earned today."

"True enough. How many people have already accepted the offer?" he asked.

"Forty-four. Wait," Dudley added when the number writing in golden ink in the top right corner shimmered and changed. "Forty-seven."

"And a maximum of sixty people. If we don't jump on this, we'll be locked out." There was no reason Harry could see to pass up an opportunity like this, not with a few hundred dimma all but guaranteed and the temptation of another two thousand just sitting there. He laid a finger on the paper, and with shared nods they accepted the contract. A wave of golden whorls, almost like a spiderweb woven of light, swept away from where their fingertips rested and over the page before the paper itself vanished. The instant the flyer was gone, Harry could feel knowledge lodging itself in the back of his mind, vague memories and a sense of premonition that would lead them to the manor at the proper time.

"What did I say, Harry? This is our lucky break. It has to be." Raising up his mug, Dudley waited impatiently until Harry raised his own cup to complete the toast. "Look out, world. The Dursley Brothers are coming, and we're bloody unstoppable."

Harry snorted. "Why do we call ourselves that, anyway? We aren't brothers, and I'm not a Dursley. It'd be the Dursley Cousins if anything. Or maybe we could use my name instead for a change."

"Potter Cousins? Dursley and Potter, professional arse-kickers?" Dudley mulled over the options for a few seconds before shaking his head. "Nah, it just doesn't have the same ring.

"Besides, it doesn't matter if the name isn't totally true. Soon enough, when we've made a reputation for ourselves? No one is going to care."

I... think I've explained everything so far. Let me know if there's anything still super-confusing. The first few chapters will be info-dump-y by necessity, but I'm trying to make this new world's introduction as painless as possible.

Silently Watches out.