After heating up some water in the boiler Luna settled for a moderately warm bath. She was used to cold water and the wait did not seem worth it. While the water was heating up she had unpacked the backpack. Currently her clothes were strewn all over the room in an attempt to air them out and make at least one set wearable again. She had also found the letter from Everwood, putting it on the desk in a visible location to not forget it again.

When she felt clean again, she faced the problem of picking the least dirty set of clothes. In the end she settled for just a pair of socks, a pair of pants and a shirt. The rest was still dirty from the road and considering that nearly every part of the floor was covert in carpets she decided to skip the boots. Those were currently tucked under the boiler, still soggy from her frequent dips into the water under the obstacle course.

She picked up a blanket and made her way to the library. The mansion was eerily quiet with no people around, but that did not bother Luna. No people who could distract her from browsing the library.

Stepping inside she realized that the hallway had been lit with candles, but the library was in complete darkness by now. The little moonlight coming in through the windows was just enough to make out the rough shape of the shelves and desks next to the window. She quickly found one of those metal plates on a desk and touched it, only now realizing that she had no idea how to ‘inject mana’ into something.

Pulling over an armchair she sat down and huddled under the blanket. She concentrated on the metal plate, but did not feel a thing from it. Thinking about her Skills, she activated Conceal Presence, the only mana-using Skill she could easily use here. She flicked the Skill on and off in her mind and found that she could feel the use of her mana. Leaving the Skill on, she concentrated on the metal plate again and tried showing with her mind. In an instant she was bathed in light and she felt a sizable chunk of her mana pool vanishing. Maybe she could try doing that little more gently next time.

Happy with the success nonetheless she disabled her Skill and went to check out the books. She managed to turn on the light in the first row of shelves and started studying the titles. This seemed to be some kind of history section, one title piquing her interest. ‘Everwood - Real or Legend’.

She returned to her chair and started reading.

Shortly afterwards Luna woke up, the book still on her lap, barely a dozen pages in. Michelle was standing next to her, an amused smile on his face. “When I did not find you in your room I was a bit concerned at first. But I should have known you would come back here. care for some breakfast?”

Luna yawned and stretched. “And a good morning to you too. I think I could do with some food right about now.”

She returned the book to its shelf and returned to the waiting Michelle. “Let me just stop at my room, I need to check if my boots are dry again. I also need to get some more clothes, I traveled with as much as was possible to carry without going at a snail's pace. Your little prank with the water under the obstacles basically ruined my last presentable set of clothes.”

Michelle looked a little embarrassed. “Peter already ruffled me for that. We have a sizable storage of all kinds for clothes. We also have a large armory, which we will be visiting after breakfast.”

Luna dropped off the blanket at her room, her boots were still wet inside, the little wood in the boiler had burned out quickly and the heat dissipated.

“Sorry, no go on the boots. Do you have a place where I can wash the clothes and dry the boots?” Luna asked.

“Just drop everything in a pile. Peter will take care of it. Do not ask me how he manages and organizes everything, but the Shadow Steward has its own magic Skills. Now come, the day is young and we have so many things to do!”

Remembering the letter just in time, she grabbed it from the desk and handed it to Michelle before she followed him back through the hallways to the same room they had dinner in last night. “Don’t you have better things to do than play host for me?” she asked.

“Of course there are other things to do. I could also spend my time replying to correspondence from various rich families and nobles who all seem to think that the Pathfinder Guild is going to sell this property. Now guess what I am going to do? I will ignore each and every single one of those letters. Instead I will have a news sheet posted, telling them all in one fell swoop where to stick their offers. A genius solution if I may say so myself.”

Luna did not really know how to reply to that. Nobles, rich families? Just how much weight did Michelle have that he could summarily offend half the city? She did not need to reply, since Peter appeared from a door on the other side of the room.

“Yes, genius. As long as you leave it to me to write down what it is going to say. If I let you do it yourself we will have half the city up in arms against us.”

Michelle nodded along. “Of course. You are much better at diplomacy after all. By the way, you were right about the other thing. Luna has no more clothes to wear and her only pair of boots is still soaked. I told her to just drop it on a pile in her room. Can you have it taken care of? She also needs a few new sets of clothes. Her current garbs are fine if she wants to play the role of a harmless peasant girl, but in the city she sticks out.”

“Certainly. I will just have to borrow Luna for a bit and take some measurements, then I can check our wardrobes. I expect you would prefer pants over skirts?”

“No skirts please. I need my mobility and skirts are just always in the way. If you have a piece of paper and tell me what you need, then I can write down my measurements. My mother was a seamstress, I know a bit about that and still know my current measurements.”

Peter summoned a piece of paper from somewhere on his person and handed it to Luna with a charcoal pen. “If you would, but please enjoy breakfast first.”

The breakfast was a simple but tasty affair. Bread, butter, eggs and some leftover vegetables from yesterday's dinner. Luna had not realized it the day before, but the little container on the table actually held pepper and salt. She could just use it to season the food herself. Spices and herbs for seasoning were not unheard off in Creek Springs, but their access to them was very limited. They had mostly relied on their own herb gardens and if they had a good year maybe a small sack of salt from the merchant.

Seeing it casually used for breakfast drove home once more how different life in the city really was.

When they had finished Peter reappeared and Luna quickly scribbled down the measurements he needed. After handing over paper and pen she turned to leave, but stopped and asked Peter. “How do you always appear where you are needed? And who is taking care of the cooking, washing and all the other small things?”

Peter grinned. “Class Secret.”

Rolling his eyes Michelle added. “Don’t bother. I have been trying to weasel details out of him for years, but he will not tell me. Fact is, he is the best damn steward I have ever seen, anywhere. I can live with a bit of mystery if that means he keeps working his magic. Come Luna, a lesson in equipment is waiting for you in the armory.”

She sent Peter a last inquisitive look, then shrugged and followed Michelle out of the room. They descended several flights of stairs and stopped in front of a metal door. Michelle unlocked it with no less than three different keys and then pushed it open. The inside were pitch black, but Michelle lit them up by touching one of the ‘lighter-plates’ as Luna had dubbed them.

Next to the entrance on a bench waited a neatly folded stack of clothes and a pair of leather boots. Michelle started swearing when he saw them. “That sneaky son of a bitch. One day I will find out how he does that. He was clearly with us, yet here are clothes for you. Inside a locked room for which only I have the keys. Hurry up, change.”

“The hell I will. I am not stripping down here in the open in front of you.” Luna replied.

“Oh, right. It must have slipped my mind that you are a woman. I of course don’t mean to say that you do not look womanly”.

Luna looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Keep talking old man. Seems like you could use some lessons in etiquette yourself. Or is it only the ‘talking to woman’ part you are having trouble with? Now, where can I change?”

Michelle just pointed to a wooden door. “There is a small room behind that door. Don’t touch anything and hurry up.”

Luna entered and injected some mana into the lighter-plate. Apparently the armory was only lighted using these mana-lamps. Fine with her, but that must be really inconvenient without a class using mana. The room contained a desk and a few shelves with some kind of binders. She remembered Michelles order to not touch anything and focused back on the clothing issue.

A cursory check revealed that they were made of linen and looked nicer than what she had been wearing before. None of the clothes were a perfect fit, but they were all wider and a tad longer instead of too tight or too short. The leather boots were comfortable and Luna realized that this set was easily better than anything she had ever owned before. She left the room and dropped her previous clothes on the bench.

They were currently standing in a corridor bare of any decorations, not even the omnipresent carpet was here. Michelle just waved her to follow. The corridor ended in another locked door, after which they entered a room the likes of which Luna had never seen before. Mounted on the walls and standing in racks along all four walls were weapons of all types, shapes and sizes.

Michelle had clearly expected her reaction, as he was patiently waiting for her to stop gawking. When she finally remembered that he was in the room he explained. “This is the main room of the armory. These are the weapons we always keep her for training. There is not one weapon that fits all. Most women are smaller than you and you are not even fully grown. You will be able to use weapons that are bigger and taller than most, at least if you keep growing like any other human girl would.”

“Behind the doors leading away from here are training chambers. They are nothing special, at least compared to the garden training area. They are split in two areas. A knowledge area, containing manuals and books and a practice area, in which you can experiment with the weapon and find out if they suit you. First rule, never train with an actual weapon without anyone else around. Second rule, none of the weapons leaves the armory without my explicit permission. Those are not suggestions. Understood?”

Luna was still looking around, but she had listened to Michelle’s speech and confirmed. “I understand.”

“Good. There is one other thing, which I wanted to do after breakfast but forgot, because of that whole clothes thing. I have here,” he held up a sheet of paper, ”your member form. You will be admitted into the Pathfinder Guild as a trainee. If you violate any of our rules during that time, you will get expelled. You will not be required to follow any orders, unless during training exercises or on a mission with a party leader. You are required to fulfill missions for the Guild. We have existed for a long time and we still receive requests, some of which we have already briefly talked about. We only accept any if we have a member around who has the required expertise. You will be informed when a request comes in, that you might be able to handle and you can then accept or decline it. If you keep declining missions without good reason, we will assign one to you. Do you understand these requirements?”

Luna was rapidly processing the information. It was obvious that the Pathfinder Guild would request something in return from her. The question being, was it worth it? As far as she could see, this place was amazing. She was not safe outside these walls, especially since she had stupidly given away her ring. Without the concealing magic, any guard with the right skill would see her race. She had basically trapped herself on the Guild’s grounds.

Hoping that she was making the right decision, she replied. “Yes, I understand. If those are the requirements I have to keep in mind, what does the Guild provide in return?”

“Ah, you have caught up already. Yes, the Guild does provide some minor things. You gain access to the training garden at all times of the day. If you want to train, go for it. You will have supervised access to the armory, it’s weapons and manuals. The manor library is always open to you.” He tapped his chin with his finger, as if he had just remembered something.

“On a side note, I personally suggest you skip the history section for now, the Everwood book you had started reading last night, was written by someone who had never even been close to the forest itself. Everything is based on other books and stories and I would bet that your brief meeting with the dryad is more first hand material than you could find in that book in total. Towards the back wall you will find different collections about Skills and Classes. It might be helpful to you if you read those. Even if they do not help you with yours, it might one day save your life to know what other classes are capable of. I also suggest reading the bestiaries about monsters, lairs and dungeons. Even if they are rare, the Pathfinder Guild is still involved in scouting them once one appears.”

“Alright, back to the important stuff.” He started counting down using his fingers. “Ok, I know where I stopped. The Guild will also organize training with different teachers. Those will mostly be our own members, who will take some time while they are here to guide you. But if it is important, we can also find outside help. But I strongly advise against it in your case. If your secret got out, that could get really ugly. What else, hmm, let me see.”

He pulled out a piece of paper and started reading. “Ha, I nearly forgot. Damn, I was sure I could make it without checking. You will also be provided with sturdy clothes for training and a decently fashionable outfit for going out in the city. Since your classes are both oriented towards outside work in the field and combat, we will also provide you with equipment that suits your classes and fighting style, as well as the training to use them.” He looked up to Luna, only to find her sitting on the ground. She was playing around with a small dagger, which he was sure had been sitting on a rack near a wall when he started talking.

Luna was looking up at him and asked, “Did Peter write that for you? Those are way too many words for you to come up with and I bet half the things on there are not part of the usual deal. I also have some questions about one of my Skills. I have not been able to figure out what it actually does.”

“Uhm, yes. Peter did write this, I am more the person for holding speeches, not coming up with them and writing them down. We really want you to stay here. You have no idea how rare it is to see any other race than humans do you? By my estimate there aren’t more than a handful of nonhumans in all the human lands at this moment. And those are just the usual elves or dwarves near the southern border, trading with the local villages. Your race is something else entirely. It is mentioned in some of the oldest legends, somehow descendant from both dryad and human, but none of the local dryads have any knowledge of how you came to be, or at least they never explained. In short, you are a mystery. A puzzle. We really do not want you to leave here without being able to defend yourself or escape. Other people might also also be very interested in you, not only in your race, but also in the fact that you actually talked to Everwood. Especially after that message is delivered by courier to the palace.”

Looking at Luna, who was deep in thought, he asked her: “Do you still wish to join?”

“Of course I do.” Luna replied. “Even if I wanted to go anywhere else, I do not know where that would be. As long as the option to pack up and leave is always available to me, I do not see why I would not want to join the Pathfinder Guild. But I have a question, when you started talking again and your attention drifted away from me, did you notice me exchanging the dagger for this short sword?”

“Excellent.” Michelle replied. “What short sword, you never moved… wait. How did you get from there to the rack with the weapon and back? What skill did you use?”

“Conceal Presence. I tried using it while you were looking at me, but nothing changed. But once you got distracted your eyes would just glance over me. I simply stood up, walked over there, grabbed this short sword and returned.”

Michelle shook his head. “Of course you get Conceal Presence. Of all the Skills you get that one. I should have known your classes had a magical component to them and started learning about your Stats, Classes and Skills first. But there will be time later, possibly over lunch on the garden patio. Right now I need to know what types of weapons your classes mention, so you can try out some. Also, stop touching the weapons.”

That was a question Luna could answer quite easily. “Any kind of projectile weapon, I have been using bows so far and light weapons for anything in melee range. Although I have to admit that the ‘light weapon’ part is still unclear to me. What exactly is a light weapon?”

“That is an excellent question.” Michelle replied. “Light weapons are basically all weapons you can easily use with one hand, without exerting yourself too much. Many fighters thought themselves clever and tried to combine their shield with an overweight one-handed weapon, thinking that would work, since it is technically still wielded with one hand. No such luck. If your class says ‘light weapon’ and you go beyond that, some of your class Skills might stop working. For example your Double Jump would not work if you were lugging around a Flamberg. There is no cheating the restrictions, if you have classes geared towards mobility, you will lose that mobility if you start using weapons or armor beyond your strength. If you gain strength through level ups, your options might increase. But I would not hold my breath if I were you..”

Luna was pleasantly surprised to get an answer to the question. These technical Class questions had always been beyond their village education. If this kind of detailed knowledge was readily available here, this really might just be what she needed to get a leg up on the world.