My original plan was to have my new apprentice measured for new clothes, make an order for a few changes of around town clothing, and then get her settled in my house. With the tailor's sudden openness, I decided a quick change of plans was in order. Not that I was taking his words at face value, he could be trying to make trouble for a competitor or me. I couldn't see how he could cause more than just a bit of hassle, but I wasn't aware of the politics of the crafters in town. A few minutes into the clothing discussion, and it was clear that I had no clue about the proper way to clothe a young female apprentice. Accepting my ignorance, I joined Sir Wincome and leaned, arms crossed, against a wall. The tailor was able to smoothly switch between high society gossip, low born gutter slang, and back to snooty fashion. I thought it likely the man had [Acting] or some merchant related Skill.

In my pretend sullen boredom, I kept careful watch of my apprentice's actions. There were a few moments where she subtly directed the tailor to more expensive options - and I noticed he happily and silently accepted the substitutions. In addition to these changes, she made an effort to check my reaction from the corner of her eye. I assume, to see if I was annoyed with our delay. My new apprentice seemed to be a bit of a brat, but I wouldn't know if that was reasonable or not until I knew her story. I found a sick form of enjoyment in pretending to be further annoyed with her delays. However, I noticed the tailor was not convinced by my acting. The discussion of clothing, styles, materials, accessories, bonnets, gloves, and aprons also included asides to which merchants in town would be likely to sell to someone who was blacklisted. The man was amazingly subtle with his gossip.

"Oh, yes! I'm certain that rolled sleeves would be nice with that neckline. We should order a second top with long sleeves if you need to protect your lovely arms or maybe pair them with thicker leather gloves? I hear that Master Leatherworker Reston has a new pair of deerskin gloves that have been dyed a delightful red color. Lovely with your lighter skin tone, I'm sure," the tailor said while Abby gave me a sly smile.

She missed the message of Master Reston's willingness to buck the Leatherworker's Guild, but it might have been the expense of the red dye that she focused on. Either way, I was having trouble holding in my laughter at the tailor's manipulations. My apprentice had no idea that a few silvers worth of clothing - even a full wardrobe of women's fancy finery - would never compare to the specialized magical tools I was planning to purchase with my latest windfall. Skill Trainers could always improve their training with magic tools, the profession was a bottomless pit for gold. No matter how much we spend, we could always find a new way to improve with another type of training. My training had mostly focused on resistance training since the tools were relatively cheap, and it, at worse, could be done without magic tools.

After an hour of the two playing their games, I called a halt to the discussion and directed the pair to finalize the order. After another fifteen minutes of itemization, the quantities and prices for the order were finalized. As I thought, it was almost fifteen silver for clothing, an outrageous price even including the extensive improvements to materials and style that had been ordered. My signing off without care caused Abigail to frown and left me smiling inside.

"We'll need to stop at my shop to grab some equipment for tomorrow," I said.

My new apprentice made an unladylike grunt in affirmation, which I took to be agreement.

"I'll also be grabbing my price book. I want you to go through it and select a few skills you would like to learn and order them by preference. To learn to train others, you will first have to learn a few skills, and it will help if you select one," I continued with a casual air as walking.

"Really?" Abby said with a chipper voice, the sudden happy tone surprising me after her previously sullen and angry demeanor.

At my look, she returned to frowning through her hair, though I noticed that her frown was less severe than before.

When we reached my shop, I was surprised to see a rolled scroll nailed to the door. The thick construction nail was driven into the paper and directly into one of the fancy designs I had commissioned to be carved into the door. Yanking away the paper and leaving the nail, for now, I unrolled the parchment to see that it was a notice that my potions could no longer be sold. It was a long stream of fancy words, but it came to the same as the letter from the mage. My alchemy shop was no longer an alchemy shop.

Snorting, I rerolled the scroll and stuffed the paper tube into my pocket. I would try my hand at mimicking the handwriting later in an attempt to earn [Forgery]. However, I doubted that my lackadaisical efforts would bear fruit.

Unlocking and disarming the magical locks, I strode into my shop and around the counter into the back. Sir Wincome made himself comfortable on the side of the room in his usual manner. Abigail wandered through the waiting room and checked each of the displays. The compounds in the waiting room were cheap, and mostly things I would be willing to have pilfered by someone waiting. They were more ruse then supplies. Below the counter, behind sliding locked doors was where I stored the more expensive supplies. Throwing wide the door to the back that offered an eye line with the entrance, I entered the shop's real heart.

In the center of the room was a small table mounted with fur pads on the legs' bottom. Overflowing with glassware, this was where I did most of my brewing. Its ability to be moved in and out of the way offered me the option to brew and keep my eye on the front door, or to move the table when I needed room for training.

I had cleaned the glass before I left, but there were some pills, and longer-lasting supplies in the drawer mounted to the bottom of the portable table that I would need. I grabbed a large cloth bag and stuffed it with painkillers, pills to induce constipation, and another to slow the body's ability to process food and a few others. Entering the back of the shop, I pulled open a chest and carefully removed the inner boxes. Each box had dried plants that were used mostly to produce itching powder. I took care to remove them without disturbing the dust inside to avoid spreading it. Despite my best effort, my hands were sure to pick up some of the irritating materials. Once the chest was empty, I pushed on one of the decorations on the bottom corner of the chest. With a click, the false panel on the bottom swung upward to expose the carefully hidden compartment storing my pricing books.

The pricing book was poorly named - craftsmen had long since stopped listing prices in them. The name was a holdover despite the incorrect moniker. Instead, it was a book that contained all of a crafter's services and the options within that service. In most cases, the direct one-on-one service of a shop keeper or master was desired. At the same time, a bit of distance between customer and crafter was appreciated. A Master Carpenter specializing in erotic furniture for pleasure houses might be visited in person by a Lord, though, a price book was more likely to be requested instead. The polite fiction was useful even if everyone involved understood the facts of the matter. For a Skill Trainer, it was also an option to allow word of mouth to spread.

A merchant or low noble with an eye for a new Skill could quickly check if I offered the service. If not, it might be worth their while to seek me out for a special commission. The hunt, the need to seek me out, and the extra cost of a special commission were often what kept a customer moving forward to complete their training. The more straightforward Skills could often be earned in a few final hours of my effort. I would oversee their training with practice sessions and simple, practical steps. Yet, my insistence that they train at home in addition to my services would often fall on deaf ears. There was nothing more frustrating than trying to get a customer to come back for another torture session when their final push failed. Once subjected to the pain and then let free, few would willingly return.

I did not offer refunds.

Snagging my books, I returned the boxes of dried herbs to the chest and noticed that the back of my left hand was already starting to itch.

When I returned, I handed Abby the pricing book, and then directed the two to leave the store. Once the shop was closed, we made the quick journey to the house. By the time we made it in, the light was fading. Sir Wincome made his customary home on my front porch, the chair not having disappeared during my nearly two months of travel. In fact, the entire house was oddly undisturbed. With Mason's spree through the city's underbelly, I expected the neighborhood to suffer from a crime wave without our criminal protectors. Finding my house intact, I directed Abby to the front room while I gathered spare bedding. Dumping my travel pack in my room, I returned with a blanket and pillow.

"No bed?" she asked when she glanced into the downstairs master bedroom.

I was still annoyed by her earlier antics, even if I had mostly ignored them. I couldn't resist responding to her sullen and unthankful tone when she learned she had the master bedroom.

"The last owner was murdered in it, so I had to throw it out. I'll have a new one ordered soon. Good night," I said to her surprised face and turned to dash up to my room.

As I expected, my mother was sitting on my bed when I returned, window locked tight, and traps seemingly undisturbed.

"Oh, my baby boy! You are growing up so fast. Now I know why you ignored all those women I kept throwing at you while growing up! You like the big strong women," she said while grinning, her hushed voice almost dipping into sugary sweet baby talk at times.

"I ignored them because they were trying to train me at the time. Some were double or even triple my age," I said with a sour look before folding myself into a chair. I unstoppered a jar of water that I kept in the corner of my room and splashed away the feel of days of grime from my face. I would stop at the city baths tomorrow before my session with Snowy. I would need to get clean again after our practice, but it would be nice to show up without smelling like the road.

My mother gave me a knowing look at my response, but happily, she left the topic.

Nodding, she turned to a different subject, "You know, that was clumsily done. I approve of pulling the Baron's tail, I've done it more times myself than I can count, but it was poorly done."

At my silence, she continued, "What did you notice that was out of the ordinary for the man?"

"How would I know? I've only met him once before!" I said, then dropped my voice when my mother gave me a dirty look.

"And you haven't listened to rumors? We both know I trained you better than that. You saw an opportunity to tweak his nose and went for it, ignoring the warning signs. Now, what did you miss?"

I closed my eyes and reviewed what I knew of the man's actions, what he was known for, and the impression I had of him from our first talk then played through the latest meeting. Only one thing stood out, and when it was clear to me, I felt a bit of dread.

Locking eyes with my mother's ever-shifting appearance, I answered, "He was drinking more than I would expect. Rumor says he enjoys his drink, but he is not known to be a drunkard. He seemed stable when we joined you, but I would bet he had more drinks even before that."

Nodding, she leaned back on my bed, knowing her lesson was already delivered.

"Which suggests?" she asked while fiddling with a dagger that I hadn't seen her draw.

"Strong emotion, a sudden change in stress from an unusual cause, mind control, doppelganger infestation, a sudden flair of chronic disease, pain from a wound, badly trained body double," I said, trying to scrounge up as many options beyond the first that I could.

My mother just gave me a sardonic look, knowing that I was just trying to annoy her instead of answer the question with my most likely guess.

"One of his maids went missing recently. She supposedly was spying and had absconded with things from his office. They found her head," mother said, her voice calm despite the details.

"Apparently, he was close to this maid."

I rubbed my face and tried to clear the haze that the long day and even longer days of travel had caused. Given that new bit of information, I was frankly surprised the Baron hadn't decided to take out his anger and frustration on the first available target. Me. To his credit, the Baron acted better than many a grieving high noble would have when suffering my prodding.

Blowing air from my lips, the silly flapping noise conveying my annoyance and frustration as clearly as possible. I continued to rub my face before finally slapping my hands down in my lap.

"Alright, I'll think about that later. I need information on the Baron's mage - he seems far too weak, something is going on there. Any word about the Baron's throat cutter, Mason, and his current mission. Also, what you have heard about my new apprentice? Finally, I'm sure you noticed in my list that my [Meditation] Skill soared a few days ago, I have news for the Guild on that. There is so much here, I don't know where to start!"

This was how talks with my mother would usually go. It was less a caring mother directing her son and more of a knife fight between partners. Sharp jabs and suddenly shifting focus, the conversation would jump from one subject to the next. Rarely could we spend an hour silently together. Instead, we would talk about whatever was bothering us at the time. Like a knife fight, it would be short, sharp, and often painfully touching on things better left alone. This verbal jousting was contrasted with my father. Conversations might only lightly touch on essential subjects and rested on long silent periods of work or training. Both approaches worked, but my father's quiet support usually left me feeling better. However, I would admit my mother's method often induced action.

As I listened to what my mother knew about the Baron's mage, I tried to decide how to handle tomorrow's training with Snowy and the warmth I could still feel from where we had joined hands.