Scritch blinked down at the cracked glass fragments and base of the orb around them.

“I was able to get most of your sheet… The head priest is going to kill me,” He groaned as he stared at her paper.

“So, what is she?” Leoric found himself asking as he gingerly stepped over the shattered glass.

“Nothing valuable. She’s got a dead class,” He said with a grumble.

“Stats in ranger, rogue and about everything else like a cursed savage, low attack, low defense, high speed,” He prattled off as he looked at the sheet.

“She’s got a lot of interference from the gods, so she’s probably got a race curse,” He grumbled.

“Dead class?” Baldir asked curiously.

They always heard about it from time to time, someone who inadvertently took too many skills or classes that combined together and yielded an overarching class like ‘giant lizard tamer’ or the like. There were extinct animals they had skills for, sages and priests of dead gods. Scritch, however, he said with a grimace, was an ‘artificer.’

“What’s an orifice?” She asked.

“Artificer,” Leoric corrected.

“That too,” Baldir said, earning a derisive look from Blast. Scritch blinked one eye, then the other.

“Can I have the shiny bits?” She asked, unphased by their talk.

“What is this word, grandpa?” Blast asked curiously as the bedraggled man at the window told her she could have the broken glass.

“Artificer?” He asked.

“Yes. I have no word for this thing,” Blast purred, flickering her tongue as she thought.

“Ha!” Scritch said with an excited giggle as she pulled free a sack from her pack and began to gather all the tiny bits very cautiously.

“Lots of shinnies,” She said to herself as each piece made its way into her pack. They jangled like real crystal.

“He said I could have it,” Scritch told Leoric who gave her a sympathetic glance.

“She’ll make a fine…I dunno. Baker or something? I’m sure of it,” the attendant said as Scritch triumphantly picked up the last of the pieces and toddled their way.

“Thank you for your time. Apologies for the orb,” Leoric said as he watched him pacing anxiously.

He shot them a dirty glance. He shouldn’t have been so hasty to snatch it away, but Scritch had a complete, save for her blessings and curses, stat sheet. She was ready to enter the adventuring world. Sure, she may be a dead class, but plenty of adventurers found combat skills effective without boons and specific classes.

Scritch toddled behind them, pouch in her hands, proud as could be. She came in for some silly paper and they let her have a whole bag of shinnies.

“Do not put those in my pile. They’re sharp and worthless,” Blast said to Scritch. She looked up at Blast expectantly and made a noise of agreement. Blast snorted in response.

“Do you know the meaning of her class, what word we use in the proper tongue?” Blast asked.

“Hmm, not sure,” Leoric said as they piled into their wagon and set off down the road.

“Also, how the hell do you drink enough to get the Drunken master title,” Leoric asked as Baldir shrank down in his seat and did his best to keep his face covered with the hood of his cowl, though it was daytime.

“I dunno, but I’ve spent the last twenty-six years avoiding sobriety like taxes,” He said confidently.

Leoric grumbled.

“And you’re a terrible monk. That poor woman,” Leoric said with a tisking noise.

Blast’s expression soured a little at the mention of it.

“Bah, she wasn’t complainin’,” Baldir said happily as they reached the outskirts.

Scritch found herself a seat on the floor and spread out all the pieces of the orb. She grabbed one piece, the another, holding them together at odd angles.

“Artificer….artificer,” Leoric said as he glanced over her sheet.

Leoric paused at her intelligence. He compared it to his own. Leoric had high intelligence, as befitting a well-traveled and read Druid and Gnome. Scritch, though she was just a child by her own standards, had a few slivers more in her intelligence bar than himself, and twice that of Baldir. He stared down at it with a squint.

“Perhaps I’m ready for spectacles,” He said as he stared down at it.

He looked over to Scritch as she pressed two pieces together and made disappointed noises as they didn’t stick. She stacked them, pushed them together and was toying with their order. She stared down at the pile, blinked one eye, then the other.

“H’uh…” She said with a chitter.

Leoric’s eyes traveled from her intelligence to her wisdom. The parchment highlighted one of the emptiest bars he’d ever seen. It contained barely any. It sat next to another bar, three-fourths of the way full, labeled ‘Instinct.’ Hers was labeled as ‘high.’

“That seems about right,” Leoric muttered to himself.

“Artificer…” He mumbled to himself, trying to remember. He gasped!

Blast climbed to the front of the cabin to watch the scenery coming at them down the field.

A distinct clicking noise was heard. Scritch giggled over something, made a few frustrated high-pitched grunts and stopped. Leoric looked back.

Before her sat the remnants of the orb, nearly perfectly shoved together. Scritch held one last crystal piece in her hands, a shard by the looks of it.

“What the seven circles,” Leoric said as Blast sat up in attention.

Scritch’s last piece was in her hand. The entire thing had spiderwebbed cracks scouring its surface. The base looked almost chewed on. She smacked the piece against the hole, sideways, upside down. It all seemed strange until it slipped in with an uncoordinated grasp and a loud sharp CRACK was heard.

“H’uh. Grandpa… It’s doing a thing,” Scritch said as the piece slipped into place. The spiderwebbing cracks started to draw into one another.

A thin blue light glowed around the cracks. Scritch poked the individual pieces of the glass with her sharp little nail, emanating a tiny ‘tink’ with each poke. Another sharp crack sounded and with perfect precision, the orb left.

“SMOKE TAMER!,” Blast said with a triumphant spark of fire in her jaw.

“Smoke tamer?” Leoric asked as Blast chirped and danced with happiness.

She looked into the orb with the blue light gleaming from her fiery gaze.