As Crystal and I walked back to our posts, I told her I was really disappointed with her performance.

"We're going to have to work on your aim," I said. "And you need to learn to pay attention to my signals."

She frowned at me. "You didn't tell me about any signals."

"Ah. That's true. We're going to need to work out a lot of things, then. First off, we need to find your spear."

We stopped, looked at the ground, and immediately stopped trying.

"It's fine," she said. "I can probably take care of myself with magic. [Fire Bolt] only costs 5 MP and has a short, 5-second cooldown."

We reached the wall, standing at her post. I didn't want to leave my only conversation partner just yet, so I stuck around and asked more questions. "Your spells have a cooldown?"

"I'm pretty sure skills do, too. Wouldn't really be fair if they didn't."

Scratching at my chin - and noticing for the first time that I had a beard, which was cool - I nodded to myself. That made sense. "Huh. Well, I pretty much always died after a fight, so I never noticed."

She scoffed. "And you have the nerve to tell me that I need work?"

"Yeah, well, I had to fight higher leveled opponents on my own!"

We bickered a bit more, tossing insults about each other's equally poor - mine was slightly less poor, in my humble opinion - fighting capabilities before we fell silent.

For having a friendly interaction with another NPC, you have gained +2 Charisma.

I looked at Crystal. "It turns out talking to you isn't all that useless."

She snorted. "Didn't you say we had a lot of things to work on?"

"Yes, that's right! Let's see...First off, I think we need to make signals."

I held up my hand and crossed two fingers - my index and my middle. "That's our signal for when you should fire."

Crystal shook her head, leaning back against the wall. "No, that's too hard to see. Especially in all this snow."

"Okay, fine." I made a fist. "How about this?"

She jogged a few feet away, turned around, and looked at me. After a minute, she nodded and jogged back over. "I can see it as long as you don't run off too far."

Grimacing, I said we'll have to train her Agility up more. She paled at that, to my absolute delight.

"For now, though, we're going to work on your accuracy."

"How are we going to do that?"

I looked across the snow plain ahead of us and threw out one hand. "By making snowmen!"

An hour or two and 2 Strength and Endurance - each! - gains later, we had created four lopsided and awfully terrifying snow blobs. There wasn't enough snow to make proper snowmen - shockingly - so we just rolled four big balls and left it at that.

"Alright!" I said, clapping my hands. "Here's the deal. You're going to run through the balls while I stand here and practice [Burst]. You're going to try and hit me all while running around."

"That sounds dangerous..."

"The best kind of training is the deadly kind," I informed her. "And we can't die, so what's the worry?"

She rubbed her chest, eyes glossing over as her mind took her to the past. "We can still feel pain," she murmured.

"That we can," I said. "Which is why we're training your Agility attribute; you'll get so fast that you won't get hit!"

She stared at me balefully before I shooed her off toward the balls. When both of us we're in place, I held up my hand and clenched it into a fist.

The results of our training were spectacular.

For me:

For constant use of skills, [Burst] has increased to level 4. [Burst] now doubles AGI for 4 seconds. The double trigger lasts for 2 seconds.

For constant strenuous activity, your Agility and Endurance attribute have both been raised by +1.

Name: Flake (Elden Keep Guard)

Class: Guard

Level: 2

HP: 140/140

SP: 30/150 (+10)

MP: 10/10

TP: 0

AP: 0

STR: 14

DEF: 0

END: 15 (+1)

AGI: 11 (+1)

VIT: 11

INT: 10

CHA: 8 (+2)

Skills: [Measure Bribe] - 1; [Lessar Radar] - 2; [Thrust] - 2; [Burst] - 4; [Charge] - 1; [Toughen] - 1; [Battle Sense] - 1

Spells: -

For Crystal:

For constant strenuous activity, your Agility and Endurance attribute have both been raised by +2. Your INT has been raised by +1.

For constant use of a spell, [Fire Bolt] has increased to level 3. Accuracy has increased by 6%; Accuracy is now 56%. Burn effect has increased by 4%; Burn's effectiveness is now 34%. Force damage increased by 4; Force Damage is now 24.

Name: Crystal (Elden Keep Guard)

Class: Guard

Sub-class: Fire Mage

Level: 1

HP: 90/90

SP: 12/120 (+20)

MP: 3/16 (+1)

TP: 0

AP: 0

STR: 9

END: 12 (+2)

AGI: 8 (+2)

VIT: 7

INT: 16 (+1)

CHA: 12 (+2)

Skills: [Measure Bribe] - 3; [Lessar Radar] - 1; [Thrust] - 1

Spells: [Fire Bolt] - 3

Oh, yeah. We're really coming together now.