I lay in bed later that night, trying to ignore the stinging pain in my nose. The second loop through floor eight had not gone perfectly to plan, one of the assassins managing to get a cut in on the exposed part of my face. It wasn't a bad wound, especially compared to some I'd had, but getting a dose of poison directly into my head was profoundly unpleasant, and had disrupted me enough that the assassin had got a couple more swings in before I could take it out. Thankfully, my upgraded armour had shown its worth, and the follow on blows hadn't penetrated.

I really should start playing things a little safer, not that I intended to work on floor nine without switching class and having a few levels of [Distortion] under my belt. What else did I have on my to-do list that didn't risk little green monsters cutting my nose off? I couldn't find any information on removing negative titles, even in the library. Weaponising crystals was done. The research institute was busy changing the world without needing more input from me. I'd like to replace my rings with rank two versions, but that would be expensive. Besides, if I waited for a bit, there should be a whole range of interesting enchanted accessories coming onto the market.

I was making reasonable money from delving, but gold coin level income would again need to wait, either for the guild to buy ingots or for institute stuff to take off. One thing that was worming its way back to the top of my list was finding Cluma and giving Camus a punch in the face, but again, that would need a bunch of gold coins, and some way of hunting her down in the much larger city. I'd more or less run out of stuff to do until I'd got my last two levels.

So I slowed down. I spent the autumn without breaking the economy, inventing anything silly, or nearly getting myself killed. I continued to work the dungeon at a more sedate rate, spending more time back at the village.

On my first trip back, Kari stared boggle-eyed at the Prototype Electro-Thaumic Projector for a full ten minutes before managing to say anything. When she did recover, it was to exclaim that she was going to get a job at the institute. She left the very next day, another one of my friends moving out of the village, although thankfully Kari did at least send us her new address.

A couple of weeks into Autumn, the guild started buying ingots again, so I sold off a dozen bars of mythril. That gave me enough to stop caring about money for a bit, and to show my gratitude to the town hospital. Dawnhold's delvers shop never did get a huge selection of mythril accessories, given that our dungeon wasn't deep enough to produce silver. I did at least cut my six rings down to three slightly better made ones, the rank two enchantments giving me a plus eight to each stat.

Without facing new challenges, my skill gain slowed, but I did pick up a few odd levels, culminating in another class level as autumn ended. Only one more to go now. Among the skill gains, the most interesting was [Strength], the next skill that reached max level.

Skill [Strength] advanced to level 12

Title [Skilled] evolved to [Skilled 2]

[Skilled 2] - You have maxed out a large number of skills before reaching your third rank. Maximum skill level raised by 5. (Rank 3)

That caught me by surprise; I'd already had fifteen skills at level twelve. My best guess was that I needed five rank two skills per rank two class, a guess I confirmed on visiting the library and checking the unlock conditions. The library didn't contain information on a rank four version, but whether that was because no-one had achieved it, or it didn't exist in the first place, or whether it was in the library but just didn't continue the numeric naming scheme, I couldn't say. The library really needed an index or contents page of some sort. Being able to interact only by searching was silly...

I appreciated getting a bit more room to grow my mana manipulation skills, given that I wasn't going to be able to get rank three versions anytime soon. My weapon proficiency too. None of my other skill gains unlocked anything, but levels were levels and I wasn't going to complain about it.

Dexterity increased by 1

Endurance increased by 1

Skill [Dexterity] advanced to level 11

Skill [Endurance] advanced to level 11

Skill [Enlarged Stamina Pool] advanced to level 12

Skill [Concealment] advanced to level 7

Skill [Concealment] advanced to level 8

Skill [Weapon Proficiency: Universal] advanced to level 13

Skill [Clock] advanced to level 2

Skill [Clock] advanced to level 3

Skill [Clock] advanced to level 4

Skill [Greater Mana Finesse] advanced to level 13

Skill [Mana Perception] advanced to level 13

Skill [Mana Perception] advanced to level 14

Skill [Greater Mana Control] advanced to level 13

Skill [Weapon Style: Flowing Mist] advanced to level 11

Skill [Weapon Style: Flowing Mist] advanced to level 12

Skill [Enhanced Stamina Recovery] advanced to level 4

Skill [Enhanced Stamina Recovery] advanced to level 5

Skill [Analysis] advanced to level 2

I finally got a single extra level of [Analysis], after almost a season of using it. [Inspection] had taken less than a day. If all rank three skills were that slow to level, progress would slow to a crawl. Although, again, I needed to be fair; one level a season would mean two and a bit years for level ten, which in terms of my lifespan wasn't actually a massive chunk. Of course, it would slow at higher levels, and rank four would no doubt be even worse. I may need to upgrade [Determined Progressor] again...

As winter approached and the weather worsened, I headed back to the village to stay. That didn't mean that I gave up on my final class level; I had [Foraging], [Hunting] and [Musician] still at level one, from my overly eventful mass skill purchase, and I hoped that working on them would tip me over the edge.

"Whatever is that racket?" complained dad, returning home from feeding the livestock.

"This is a recorder, an instrument from my old world," I answered, showing it off. I'd been able to make a decently functional one with my skills having increased since my last attempt, but it had taken a few goes to get something that was tuned well enough to produce something that could even remotely be described as 'music'. Alas, a level one [Musician] skill was not sufficient to compensate for a bad instrument. In fact, a level one [Musician] skill wasn't sufficient to make good music from an exceptional instrument.

To avoid driving my parents to insanity, and outdoors already being too cold for sitting around, I ended up going next door to Clana's old house to practise. It was still unoccupied for now; it would be used by the next couple who got married, or immigrants. Being in this house reminded me that it would be Cluma's birthday soon, which in turn made me angry at Camus all over again. I wonder what Cluma made of all this? She wasn't stupid, and should have easily worked out what Camus had done, especially given that Camus couldn't lie to her. For that matter, what did Clana think? Why did she go along with this? With a sigh, I tried to get back to making music, and put the problems I couldn't do anything about out of my head for the moment.

ding

Skill [Musician] advanced to level 2

I still hadn't heard much music in this world. There had been people playing stringed lute-like instruments in the delvers' bar from time to time, but in a drunken, unskilled sort of way, that left me unsure as to what it was actually supposed to sound like. I'd wondered before what sort of effects the [Musician] skill might have that gave it an advantage over learning to play the hard way. I'd never seen delvers heading into the dungeon carrying lutes or with bard classes, but that didn't mean I could rule out buff effects; having a bard along playing out loud went against the normal slow-and-stealthy safe approach to delving, so they wouldn't bring them even if they could offer buffs.

By the time winter entered the final week, I'd raised [Musician] and [Foraging] to four each. I'd even managed to get a level of [Hunting] after taking a bow into the forest and bringing back a kornakouneli, carefully dismantling it to let mum use the fur as well as the meat. I couldn't think of anyone in the village who would want to use the horn, so I kept it as a memento.

Ironically, despite my levelling efforts, when it finally happened, I wasn't trying for it at all.

"Hey, Peter, what time is it?" Dad called out, after looking out a window at the uniform grey sky and utterly failing at spotting the sun.

"About half-past six," I answered, invoking [Clock].

"Thanks, about time I headed to the tavern then. Wouldn't want to miss Henry's birthday celebration."

I'd normally have joked about not being invited, even though an adult 'birthday celebration' at the tavern was just code for 'let's get drunk', but I was distracted by a ding.

ding

Skill [Clock] advanced to level 5

Class [Body Mage] advanced to level 20

Class level increased intelligence by 1

Class level increased all stats by 5

After all that, the thing that finally pushed me over the edge was checking the time. I guess I should be glad I'd never bought one of the watches that had recently appeared on the Dawnhold market. Well then, let's not waste any time.

Available classes:

Rank 1: [Apprentice Fighter]

Rank 2: [Monk] [Soul Mage] [Spatial Mage] [Temporal Mage] [Thaumaturgist] [Teacher] [Trader] [Gatherer] [Bard] [Artisan]

Rank 3: [Analyst] [Body High Mage]

That's a lot of classes, but not as many as I expected. I can kind of see [Teacher], given my efforts with the village kids and my summer science lessons, but I have no idea where [Trader] came from. [Analyst] presumably comes from [Analysis], but most interesting is that instead of the various crafting classes, I seem to have [Artisan] instead.

[Artisan] - A craftsman who is adept at any craft, equally skilled with their hands and head. Unlocks related skills. Skills related to crafting gain a bonus to levelling. Levelling boosts dexterity and intelligence. (Rank 2)

So if I take that, I can buy any rank two craft skill? Nice, but it doesn't really help me in the dungeon. I'm sticking to the original plan.

Class changed to [Spatial Mage]

And that was that. No fanfare or anything. Given how rare class changes are, I feel there should be something to mark the occasion, like magical spotlights and music, and maybe some confetti. "Hey, dad, can I come to the tavern too?"

"Not until you're an adult, but you already know that. Why ask now?"

"To celebrate my class change," I answered, smiling in satisfaction when I heard mum's needles stop clicking briefly. It had been a while since I'd managed that feat.

"To be fair," she called over, "he probably has enough endurance by now that regular beer won't touch him. Just keep him away from anything stronger."

"What is your endurance, anyway?" asked dad.

"Fifty-three," I answered, eliciting a different sort of clicking from mum's direction as she dropped a needle. Nice. I went to pick it up for her; by now she looked ready to burst, so expecting her to pick stuff up off the floor would be unfair.

"What the hell?" dad exclaimed.

"I think he's including his magic in that, dear," mum said, apparently having worked it out. "Still, that's... a lot."

"Base is twenty-four, I get eight from enchanted accessories and twenty-one from [Endurance]," I explained.

"And how long can you keep that up?"

"Indefinitely, but only if I'm using it on its own. More than one buff, and my mana would drain faster than it regenerates."

"Sheesh," complained dad, cradling his head in his hands. "Never mind the regular beer, I doubt the tavern has anything that can affect you. But my answer is still no. It wouldn't be fair to let you in but not the other kids."

"Hah. Okay, I have new spells to play with, anyway."

I waved dad off, but mum interrupted before he could step out of the door. "Wait!" she cried.

My first thought was to wonder why she was trying to get me into the tavern. I'd said it mostly as a joke and wasn't expecting them to take me seriously. My second thought was to note that it really was a cry. She sounded pained.

Dad had noticed the same thing and turned back around immediately. "What's wrong?" he asked with concern.

It took mum a few seconds to answer, squeezing her voice out through clenched teeth. "It's time!"

"Time for what?"

I smacked dad over the back of the head. "What do you think?" I asked, pointing at mum's belly. Admittedly, I was starting to panic a little myself. I had no idea what was supposed to happen next. Were midwives a thing? Would Richard do anything? Did we need to handle this on our own? The disquiet I felt whenever thinking about a potential sibling had prevented me from asking questions that I probably should have done, if I wanted to be any use right now. As it was, it would be best if I stayed out of the way unless someone called me.

Fortunately, dad did seem to know what he was doing, once I'd pointed out the obvious to him, and he went running out of the house to alert Richard or whoever else he needed to; given the party, it was probably advisable to warn them not to drink too much. I knew enough about birthing to know that contractions started hours before the main event, so it was going to be a long night.

I withdrew to the bedroom and tossed and turned in bed as my feelings of disquiet grew. I didn't know how, what or why, but I was certain something dreadful was coming.