The change to craftsman’s trance came as a pleasant surprise. I considered it to be a powerful skill, but because it was relegated to only helping specific general skills, I never got to take advantage of the focus that it provided. Now that it affected my current job, I could take greater advantage of it. Using it in combat would be a mistake, as it only lets me focus on my body better; helping me understand the actions I’m performing, how I carry myself, and other things like that.

Admittedly, I was pretty happy to finally be rid of the unemployed tag in my status. I had been ignoring it as best as I could, but it was almost teasing me every time I looked at it. Well, it’s gone now, and I have a new job instead. It was pretty cool to get a job just that easily, even if it was only semantics. I suppose the trigger for it must be a combination of approval from me, whether conscious or not, combined with some degree of skill. It was also nice to practice a combat skill without having to worry about killing monsters. Learning on the fly can be useful sometimes, but when your life is on the line it’s pretty shitty. I suppose that is the benefit of training.

The requirement for leveling combat skills was that they could only be leveled when fighting monsters, and by training with someone else. I wonder if that would mean that sparring would allow someone to level their skills. If that was the case, it would be a good idea if everyone in the apartment had at least a few levels in unarmed combat. The ability to defend yourself without a weapon was useful to no end and was something that everyone should consider. Especially when we had random monsters popping up with reckless abandon. I would see if I could get Kaitlyn or Donny to spar with me for a bit. If their unarmed combat skills level, we would know that it helped, and it would be good practice for my new skills.

Donny was still behind me, waiting for me to finish looking at my menus. People tended to get this zoned-out look in their eyes when they were checking their status, so it made sense that he would know at this point.

I turned to face him, and he was still waiting.

“Hey Donny. What’s up? I heard you in the shack back there. Did you get your forge set up?”

He nodded, answering with a shy grin, “Yes to the anvil, but no to the forge.”

“What? How are you heating metal?”

Now that I was looking, there was no chimney on the building, nowhere for smoke to exit, so whatever he was doing was something magical in nature. No way could you forge without any kind of massive heat.

His answer was to take a deep breath, and let it out very slowly. As Donny breathed out, a jet of flame burst from his mouth, flying about two feet in front of his face. He was able to keep the flame going for a while before he had to breathe again.

“How does that work? I’m guessing that the reason the flame was so wimpy and lasted so long was because you were holding back?”

“Yep, you guessed right. I can see that you went through some changes then?”

My response was to extend my wings and swish my tail back and forth. As inconvenient as they could be, having them was pretty fun, and I thought they were graceful and sleek.

He just gave me a toothy grin, spreading his wings as well. Strangely, I suddenly was overcome with an urge to fight. I guess that was a form of challenge, then, and my Born Warrior instinct felt like it was go time.

“Hey, Donny. Want to spar for a bit? I want to see if you can get and level combat skills from casual sparring.”

He bared his teeth at me, and actually growled a bit. I know he was messing with me, but that stupid dragon face was looking super punchable right now.

“Sure, Vic. I can spare a few minutes. Then I can go show you what I’ve been working on while you were ranking up.”

I smiled at him, baring my teeth as well. My canines were much sharper and a bit longer now, so I’m sure I looked pretty fierce. “Let’s do this, then.”

Getting onto all fours, I planted my toes into the dirt and sprung off like a sprinter, using my wings to glide right into him. He wasn’t ready, and threw himself to the left, further into the clearing to try and escape.

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Donny!”

With a fierce growl, Donny dropped to all fours as well. Now that he did so, I could see that his skeleton had various accommodations to make that possible and that his center of gravity had been stabilized. He began to pace around me in a circle like a jungle cat, just waiting for an opportunity to attack.

There!

He jumped towards me, whipping his tail in a frenzy and gliding low to the ground, similar to what I had done before. I had him right where I wanted him. Using a stepping motion from the Art of the Blizzard, I prepared to move right to his side and deliver a palm strike to the kidney. I didn’t want to spear him with my claws, so I figured I should hold back, just a bit. He approached rapidly, and I dodged to the side. I shot my palm out with all of the speed I could muster, but somehow managed to overextend!

Donny’s tail was dragging along the ground, slightly changing his trajectory as he flew through the air. While his unarmed attacks were lacking practice, he did however know how to move, and used his extra appendages with a skill that I did not expect from someone who had not been fighting 24/7 since the change.

I missed my palm strike, but I was ready with a second blow before he could dodge even further back. I reached out with my right hand, attempting to grab his left arm and throw him down, but he spread his wings, buffeting me with wind and blowing himself through the air up to about five feet. As he flew back, I could tell he was inhaling. So that’s the way you want to play this.

I too spread my wings and circled them around my body, just as Donny let out a long breath. The flames blowing out of his mouth were incredibly hot, but it did not bother me as much as I thought they would. -7, fire damage

My wings seemed to function as natural shields and defended me from the vast majority of the flames. I opened them and prepared to attack again, but Donny was smart. He had been practicing HEMA for years before I met him, and while he didn’t know hand-to-hand particularly well, he was absolutely able to read combat. He had used my brief lack of vision to move ever closer to me and came down from the air with two slashing claws. -1, -1

They slid off the feathers of my wings with the sounds of scratching metal, and as I threw both wings out, I once again prepared two palm strikes. This was the third form of the Art of the Blizzard, for when your enemy was right in front of you and was briefly vulnerable. I slammed two palms into his chest, and sent him careening back, rolling in the dirt. I held back as much as possible, while still trying to make the attack hurt.

-18, -19

Ah, excellent. I was satisfied. With a contented sigh, I walked over to where Donny was pouting in the dirt.

“You okay there, big guy?”

Looking up at me from the ground, he seemed disgruntled, but not particularly unhappy. “Yeah, I’m good. What was that? I saw you practicing before, but where the hell did you learn kung-fu from?”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s my martial artist class. It gave me access to a couple of combat techniques, but I have to learn them, like, for real in order for the skill to go up.”

“Oh, yeah? I have one of those too, except it’s for my blacksmithing. My class right now is Dragonflame Blacksmith, and it wasn’t unique, but it was an unlocked class. It came with forging techniques, but I have to learn them one at a time in order to get the skill working. It’s also how I figured out the forging flame control so fast. Making a controlled slow flame like that was definitely not something I could do two days ago. Classes seem pretty powerful if you have the time to work on them. Do you want to see what I’ve been working on all day?”

“Sure, sounds awesome.”

“Follow me, then.”

The inside of the blacksmithing shack was actually pretty clean. The floors were leftover asphalt from what used to be the parking lot, and the anvil was chained to a large stump to raise it to an appropriate height for a 9-foot tall dragon. The whole shack was built to be much larger and standing in it, I felt pretty small, considering that I was currently 7 feet tall.

“So pretty much right after you started your rank up, Taylor started weaving some wild nature magic outside. She said she doesn’t need to sleep or eat all that much anymore because, well, she's a plant. She grew this whole shed from the ground in the span of like eight hours. The walls and roof are actually one solid piece. Around the back is a large tree, and that tree is the one that the house was grown from. It’s all living wood, and Taylor said that the interior bark is very thick and holds lots of water, so it should be pretty hard to burn down.

Anyway, I went ahead and learned the enchantments and armor smithing recipe when we got back from picking classes, but there were technical requirements for being able to craft the armor. I can make the paladin armor out of any material, including steel, but if you want it to have enchantments you would need to craft it from some material with mana conductivity. We only had enough kangor for two breastplates or a set of gauntlets, so I decided to go for the breastplates. I wanted Kaitlyn to have one, and I wanted one to go to you. That being said, after our fight, I think it seems pretty useless. You would need some incredibly custom made equipment in order to accommodate your wings. From what I can tell about those gauntlets and boots, they have an in-built re-sizing feature, but you would need to find that enchantment somewhere, and I don’t have it here.

Personally, I think our best bet is to find a monster that has a thick skin and make a set of leather armor out of it. I’m pretty good at leatherworking from all my time spent building costumes for cosplay, but making hides into leather is not something I’ve done. I had Kaitlyn run to the library for more books on tanning hides yesterday. I just haven’t gotten around to working on it yet. “

Well damn. Looks like Donny is ahead of the curve as far as crafting goes. Looking through the room, on a workbench I saw a kangor breastplate and backplate. It wasn’t boob armor like you see in video games, but a legit set of armor, designed to protect someone. “Is that Kaitlyn’s plate armor right there? It looks awesome. Did you really have the time to engrave it?”

He nodded, continuing with, “Yeah, that’s for Kait. When I finished with the breastplate and started engraving the piece, I just kind of got into a zone, and sort of just did it. I think it has to do with the recipe, maybe? I was also able to apply some beginner enchantments to it. Pretty good for a first time, right?”

Zald Paladin Light Breastplate – Increased defense against fire attacks by 10%. Minor Lightening. Requires 12 strength.

“Damn Donny, first try and you already made an uncommon? I don’t know if you’re just lucky or it is all just skill. Seriously, good work. I’m guessing lightening reduces the weight and the strength requirement for armor?”

Getting a bit more confidant, he smiled, saying haughtily, “Yep, that’s right. This one had a requirement of 14 before the enchantment.”

All of this work Donny was doing gave me an idea. I was curious, so I asked, “Are you planning on selling this stuff in Garcia’s shop? I bet they would be happy to sell things for you. You could probably make a pretty penny for it, considering that everyone needs armor, and other than getting a lucky find in a ruin or dungeon, you would have to have it made. I bet weapons would sell for even more.”

He hunched a little again, saying, “You guessed it. I’ve already talked with Selena about it, and she is all on board. As well as guides to tanning materials, I also asked Kaitlyn to bring some books on medieval weapons so I could attempt to replicate some of them.”

“Damn dude, good for you. Keep it up, I guess. I’m going to try and check in with Kaitlyn about the gems. Do you know if she is back yet?”

“Yeah, I think she is inside. I saw her come back through the fire escape about an hour ago.”

“Alright. See you around, Donny.”

I entered the house through the shop in the back, not bothering to fly up to the fire escape. It was nice to stretch my legs for a bit. In the shop I saw Mr. Garcia, who let out a startled yip when he saw me at first. He recognized me right after that, but I must have given him quite the scare. After his little bark I almost burst out laughing, but was able to control myself just barely by repeating in my head over in over, “He may be fluffy, but he can still evict you.”

I headed up the stairs, passing Michael in the hallway. He also looked pretty shocked to see my changes, but he just kept moving down the stairs back to his family’s apartment.

I walked in through the front door to find Kaitlyn, Cindy, Steph, Taylor, and Ms. Selena sitting at the table. They all stopped talking when I walked in, looking up at me. Cindy quickly rose and pulled up another bar stool from the kitchen for me to sit on. Obviously they had been talking when I entered.

After I sat down, Kaitlyn started talking. “Vic, good. It's... I..."

She seemed frustrated, and after calming down a bit finally blurted out, "Oh, for cripes sake. Basically, long story short, I, well, found James.”

I almost stood up, I was so happy to hear the news, but one look around at everyone’s faces and my spirits sank. “What is it Kaitlyn? What happened? Is he okay?”

She sighed, quietly and confidently stating, “He’s alive, but it’s not... great. The gems are holed up in a weird junkyard to the southeast. They built some walls around out of old cars and have been bringing people into work for them, making some kind of makeshift fortress out of it all... but... the assholes aren't doing the work themselves. From what I could see, they have at least 15 people there walking around in chains, moving things around. You can tell who wants to be there or now because a bunch of people I inspected had the job 'slave'. I'm not, like, 100% sure, but I think one of the people matches the description I have of James. Same race and hair color and all."

Now that she was starting to get more comfortable talking she was finally getting out of her box. After a deep breath, she continued.

"I have been moving around for the last two days picking off their patrols whenever they go out for food and resources. I’ve almost hit rank 2 from it. They knew that there was someone after them, and so they started digging themselves in more and more into their bases, and finally I had some of them lead me back to where they were staying. From what I saw, they have three major bases of operation each run by basically a sub-boss.

And there's another problem. The place with James is right smack in the middle of the two other bases. If we attack the middle base first, we will have to deal with people coming in from the other two."

At that, she quieted down. Murmuring under her breath, she said, "I hate them so much, Vic. I just want them gone.”

Everyone turned to look at me, waiting for my response. I sat in silence, and just thought for a little bit. There were a lot of people in this gang, and not all of them were actually evil scumbags. Many of them were probably just trying to get by and were using the gang as a way to make money. Some probably even got in because of family. After around a minute of turning the thoughts over in my head, I had come to a decision.

“Alright Kaitlyn. I agree we need to go and take them out. We need to try and rescue James, and there is no one else to help us. I think we don’t really have any choice at this point.”

As I said that, I understood that I was setting out to kill dozens of people. I felt pain in my heart at the idea of killing so many, but the image of those children dead in the house kept intruding on my thoughts. I steeled myself, and I was resolute.