Silas had his head in his hands staring at the living disaster that had wandered into his more or less peaceful dungeon town. Peaceful aside from you know the constant combat with monsters and the idiot noble, but other than that it was pretty chill. “Hey, Silas you okay? Did I break you?” He wished she would just shut up for a while. “Hey, Silas, did you have a heart attack? Do you want me to give you a potion? It’ll cost you if I do.”

“No, I’m fine Sophia, perfectly fine.” He didn’t want to have to deal with being in debt for a potion. Those things were more expensive than most small towns, his included. “Where’s Cassian by the way?” He was usually the only one who could keep a handle on her craziness.

“Oh, he’s dungeon diving back in Olympus. Silly name really we're just people not gods even if my family has ended up being inordinately fond of lightning powers, no one wants to follow my path and study chakra.” The absurdly strong women before him pouted like a child and Silas didn’t even bother to hide his exasperation. “Besides I’m not attached at the hip to my husband, I’m my own person you know.”

Silas’ head met his desk for the second time that day as his annoyance got the better of him. “No one is saying you’re not your own person.” He frantically searched for an excuse besides wanting her to have a babysitter. “It’s just that I was wondering about one of my old teachers, that's all.”

Sophia smiled and laughed at that. “Silas I think you’ve known us long enough that you can call us friends, besides we’re not that much older than you.” The old mage managed to keep a straight face at that but internally he was ranting against such a statement. He was much younger than her thank you very much, he only looked decrepit because he wanted to. “Anyway, I’m here to see my cute grandson Vance. Do you know where he is?”

Silas thought about it for a moment. “If he’s not in the dungeon he should probably be at the training grounds. He’s been rather diligent lately, you might want to talk to him about his great sword though. It’s rather unwieldy and he should probably switch to something a little smaller for practicality at the very least, maybe a nice longsword.” The old mage broke out of his reverie as he realized Sophia was already halfway out the door.

“Thanks, Silas, we can catch up more later, oh and I want to see the reports for this dungeon. I heard it was rather interesting.” He nodded and waved back, he could do that. Maybe this visit wouldn’t be so bad after all. “I also have a new apprentice, make sure she finds me once she gets here okay.” His hand froze in mid-air as he processed what had been said, and then thought about Sophia’s usual definition of an apprentice. “Wait Sophia come back.” He dashed out into the hall and looked around, but there was no sign of the assassin.

Groaning, he went back into his office to get out the dungeon reports. Hopefully, she knew better by now it had been a few centuries since he had last been in Olympus. He didn’t want to have to sort out a kidnapping case of hers, again.

“So let me get this straight, this Sophia person wanders up to you in the woods, randomly decides that you’ll be her apprentice, and decides to test you in a way that almost kills you.” Celia nodded, relieved to be taken seriously, she didn’t feel like Sophia was hostile towards her, just particularly careless. She didn’t want to get killed or vanish because someone had misjudged her strength, it was also nice to get cleaned up and not be carried around anymore. “Then after you’re recovering from the backlash of using chakra she basically kidnapped you and dragged you back here?”

“That’s about it.” Celia took a sip of the tea she was holding and smiled as the rich and sweet flavors rolled across her tongue. The drink didn’t taste like any type of tea she had had before, but it was certainly delicious. Kira sat across from her with a drink as well staring a bit incredulously down at the table. She rather liked Kira not only from extracting her from Sohpia but the other woman seemed to be just a genuinely nice person. To be honest, she still didn’t particularly trust Kira yet, but they still had a nice conversation and meal. She had never eaten this well in her life, she had always saved her money for things like more daggers or better armor. She might have to put aside a little to come back to this inn though, it was just that good. “What is this desert called again?”

Kira smiled and stole another confection off the large plate she had ordered. “It's called chocolate, it's rather expensive but it's more affordable up here than farther south. The plant that it grows from doesn’t do too well in the cold.” Celia nodded and grabbed another of the chocolates as well, making sure to savor the little desert. “So now the big question is what do you want to do?” Kira was looking at her seriously with concern in her eyes. “I’m not sure who Sophia is but there are several realities of the situation that we’re going to have to address. Firstly with how strong she seems to be there’s a good chance, she’s a noble, maybe not but if she is and she tries to kidnap you again. Well, you’d have to take things to court fortunately there are rules in this duchy preventing nobles from doing whatever they want to commoners like us. However, there’s a wide range of enforcement if you catch my meaning, as nobles or those directly appointed by them usually serve as judges.”

Celia paled slightly but then looked thoughtful. “That’s a little terrifying but I might try talking to Sophia again. She did offer to teach me how to use chakra better and that’s probably not an offer I’ll come across too often.”

Reluctantly Kira nodded. “Unfortunately that’s probably true. Most noble houses have a few assassins, or chakra users if you prefer, in their employ and have collected at least a few techniques that you could use. But you’d have to practically swear fealty to learn them. There’s no independent organizations like the Mage Guild you can turn to.”

Sinking into contemplation Celia took another sip of her drink and sighed. “I wish there was a way to learn more about Sophia, right now I don't know if I should be running in the opposite direction or begging her to teach me. I mean she almost killed me, but she is also the most powerful chakra user I’ve ever seen, and she didn’t come across as being malicious.”

Kira chugged the rest of her drink and stood up. “Well, I’m not sure how much good it’ll do but let's go ask old man Silas. He’s been around a few times, the ancient relic that he is.”

Celia stood as well, quickly finishing her drink and then looking down forlornly at the remaining chocolates on the plate. “You don’t suppose they’d mind me taking these do you?” Kira shook her head and Celia happily collected the remaining sweats onto a napkin. “Who’s this Silas by the way?” She felt like she had heard the name before, but she couldn’t quite place where.

“He’s the current guild master for the town, don’t bring that up to him though, he’s still made he got appointed.”

“Wait what the guild master?” That probably made Kira rather important too, right? “Why would he be mad about being in charge of something as powerful as the mage guild?”

Kira waved a hand in exasperation. “He says it's too much work, besides he’s only the leader for this town, not the entire mage guild.” The other woman sighed as they passed through the bustling center of town, and Celia looked around. There were a lot of new buildings going up, mostly wooden, but with a smattering of stone buildings, most notably the mage guild where they were headed. “I’m going to miss this place, it's been a lot of work but it was fun working to get this place off the ground.”

Celia hesitated at that wondering again if she should be getting out of town as fast as possible. Then she firmly shook off the instinct and kept following Kira, she couldn’t run forever and not everyone in charge could be terrible right? Besides if this ended up being some sort of elaborate trap then she could always run later, hopefully. “So you’re quite powerful in town aren’t you?” She tried hard to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

Kira didn’t seem to notice anything and just shrugged. “I suppose, I’m mostly just Silas’s babysitter. I do most of the actual work while he sits back and signs something or makes executive decisions. Like deciding to build the bathhouse before the inn.” Celia nodded relaxing fractionally.

“I saw that, I’ve only been to the bathhouse a few times, but I was surprised at how cheap it was.” It was enough for even her to afford, actually now that she was taking more tier two jobs she could actually start going there more often. It felt wonderful to be clean and not have to pinch and save every single coin. That was nice as well.

When they arrived at the mage guild an old man was sitting beside the entrance looking harassed and absolutely ancient. He cut a bit of a striking picture with his mage robes, looking wise and scholarly until he opened his mouth at least. “Kira, where were you? You just missed all the craziness. Isn’t it your job to handle the stressful stuff so that I don’t have to?” The old man practically whined as he stood up.

Kira chuckled and shook her head. “I'm pretty sure it's the other way around, old man, you’re the boss so you get to handle all of the hard things.”

The older mage shook his head mulishly. “That’s completely wrong. The point of being in charge is being able to foist work that you don’t want on someone else. In any case, I need you to go looking for a recently abducted assassin. The crazy old Storm bat just arrived and apparently, she’s already recruited someone as an ‘apprentice’”

The younger mage looked entirely too pleased with herself as she gestured at Celia. “Tada, here you go Silas, and is Sophia a Storm then? Is that going to be a problem? We can’t have her randomly attacking people or committing crimes.”

“Yes, Sophia Storm is Vance’s grandmother and one of the most terrifying first-generation nobles you’re likely to meet. Anyway, she hopefully won’t cause too many problems, she just tends to bulldoze other people. I think the rate of petty crime is about to see a sharp uptick though. I’ll ask for a disaster fund from Olympus but this is still going to be a pain.” Silas scratched the back of his head and looked thoughtfully over at Celia. “What’s your name dear? Sorry, I didn’t ask sooner but this was all a bit sudden and stressful which I’m sure you can understand.”

“I’m Celia guild master Silas, and I completely understand.” She was still trying to wrap her head around everything that had happened in such a short length of time.

“Good, nice to meet you, Celia. Let’s step in and go to my office when we talk about your options. She may have seemed alarmingly insistent but you can turn down Sophia's apprenticeship and be just fine. She won’t tear your head off about it, but you might want to give it a little thought. The woman’s a bit of a loose cannon but she’s arguably the most skilled assassin anywhere.” Celia nodded and followed Silas as he continued to ramble, Kira bringing up the back of their little group as they made their way inside the mage guild.