Thunk rubbed his face again, then drained half his tankard. Looking into it he grumbled to himself, “Not sure I have enough booze to deal with this, but can’t get blackout drunk yet.” He growled quietly, then sighed and set down his tankard. “Alright. Your skills, with a few exceptions, are basically crap. Well, they aren’t actually crap, they are just basic. Look at your Enhanced attacks. They are all simple skills. Yes, they all come wrapped in one nice, neat package, but you can’t upgrade them because of that. Your Power Strike will never evolve to become Overpowering Strike, or Thundering Strike, or Die as the Sun. You’ve cut off the path to make them better, so they will forever be Basic. And what the hell are you doing with basic attacking skills for three different styles of combat?!”

Thunk was really just getting started. He hunched forward in his chair, seated on the very edge. Thrusting a finger at Dix he continued his rant, “As if having basic attacking skills you can never evolve from three different combat styles wasn’t bad enough, you added magic to the mix as well! Why do you have Channelling if you have attacking skills? You’re just going to stand there and pray nothing punches you in the nuts while you channell up a spell you don’t have the mana to use because you are a physical attacking class?!? Oh and Overload?” His voice abruptly changed into something high pitched, and somehow blonde. “I’m just gonna stand here in front of the guy I just pissed off like an idiot while I take five seconds to cast an Overloaded spell that might finish him off instead of just stabbing him in the face.” His voice dropped back to its normal timbre, but rose greatly in volume. “Genius! Why didn’t we all think of that? Oh, right. BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING SUICIDE!!!”

The dwarf was on a roll now, and nothing was stopping him. Jumping up out of his chair, he really got into his rant, wildly flailing his arms about like a crazed, tiny, drunken windmill. “And your racial skills! What the hell is that all about? Out of your five, FIVE?!?!” Thunk waved five spread fingers in Dix’s face, voice laced with jealousy and incredulation, “racial skills, only THREE of them have names, and not ONE has a description? What the fuck are you supossed to do with any of those?!? You don’t even know what the fuck they can do, let alone how to use them?!? Five fucking useless piles of shit is what you got there.” He finished by throwing his hands up in the air.

“And don’t get me started on your Necromancy! Sure, no one is going to immediately hang you for being a Necromancer, but they’ll still charge you more and give you lesser rewards for quests. Some asshole will undoubtedly blame you for a rash of sudden deaths that will happen right after people discover you are a Necromancer. They’ll just use you as a convenient excuse to murder everyone who has ever offended them, and blame it on you. I hope you enjoy your short, pointless life!”

His voice cut off as he abruptly stopped stomping around. Heaving in deep breath after deep breath, he simply stood facing away from Dix. Dix was actually quite impressed the little firecracker managed to stop screaming. Or at least he hoped he was done screaming, he wasn’t quite sure Thunk wasn’t just catching his breath for round two.

Eventually the irate dwarf turned back around. He was still scowling, so when he stomped back over to stand in front of Dix and once more attempted to skewer him with a pointing finger, Dix prepared to once more be verbally bashed over the head. Instead he got a slightly quieter growl communicating a different message. “Thankfully, despite your other ridiculous choices in skills, you have two that are actually quite good. Excellent even.” Thunk snatched both tankards off the nearby table and downed them both. Dix never even got to start in on his, and now it was empty and being whisked off for a refill once more.

While refilling the drinks, Thunk went back to discussing Dix’s skills. “Empower is actually a work of genius. Even Priests would kill to have a skill like that, particularly as it will only get stronger as it grows and evolves.” Dix made a mental note to ask why Empower could still evolve, but his Enhanced Attacks couldn’t. “And while all of the Devouring skills are amazing, from what I understand, Stride is a cut above most of them. That you already found thirty five passives to feed it is truly remarkable as well. I know the perfect trainer to help you with that skill, if you can impress him enough to actually get off his lazy ass and put in a good day's work. Failing that, I think I can make up a list of passives that you can try to feed it, provided you can figure out how to get them in the first place.”

Seated once more, with the tankards back in their earlier locations, Thunk focused once more on Dix’s Status. There was a very large problem that ran throughout the new transfer’s skills, and stats. If he was going to get the only man he knew that had a Devouring skill to help Dix train, he was going to need to know a few more things. The only reason he was hesitating was that he knew he wasn’t going to like the answers he was going to get. Dix was likely to be his last chance at getting home for a few more years, but the man was determined to chuck that chance into the fire. Struggling to keep the nerves from his voice, Thunk finally restarted the conversation, aiming towards the answers he needed this time. “So, with what you have here for skills, have you given any thought to what sort of role you are looking to pick up?”

When Dix responded with a quizzical look, Thunk started getting nauseous. He was hoping that it was just a variation in terms that was causing the confusion, not a lack of experience or intelligence. “Combat role.” Dix’s face remained blank, and Thunk’s condition worsened. “Tank, healer, damage dealer? Fighter, mage, cleric, ranger, rogue?” Dix’s brow furrowed briefly, as though thinking furiously about a deeply difficult subject. When he shook his head and looked back at Thunk, the priest gave up. Groaning in defeat he fell back into his chair, then let his head slump over, dropping his face into his hands.

A surprised Dix looked on as the dwarf emotionally collapsed in his chair. He was unsure what had caused such wretched loss as he had been paying no attention at all, so he quickly reviewed what the dwarf had said while he had been caught up thinking about languages. Thunk was upset about roles? Oh, he’s upset that I appear to have no idea what roles even are, yet alone what I am planning for. Smiling, Dix nudged the dwarf’s foot with his own, so that he would look up while he spoke, “I’m looking to run a bit of a hybrid role, focused mostly on damage, but just enough of other skills to handle back up in a pinch. More importantly, I’m looking to be good all around for solo hunting. I don’t play well with others.” Once more Dix let his sinister smile out to play. He probably should have felt bad about wearing that smile near a priest, but he enjoyed the small shiver the dwarf couldn’t quite suppress. Sure, the dwarf was a higher level, but that was only for the moment.

Thunk shook his head, ridding himself of the unreasonable depression he had found himself in. He knew better than to give up like that, but he thought his return was going to be doomed once more. He still didn’t have a lot of hope, afterall the man wanted to be a hybrid. The natives had proven for centuries that hybrids didn’t work. The only way people would be strong enough to fight off the monsters would be if they worked together in groups along specific roles. The various guilds set guidelines for teams, focused on efficiency, that were recommended for everyone. Even the noble houses followed the guidelines, often purchasing slaves, indenturing families, adopting orphans, or breeding more children to form adequate teams for their offspring to work with during their rise to power.

That is not to say that no one worked on their own. There were certain jobs that requested a solo applicant. Not all of these jobs were of the legal variety, nor were they particularly safe. At times these sorts of jobs were placed for solo adventurers specifically to make cleaning up loose ends easier. The majority, however, were simply things that a single person was a better choice for. Scouting, spying, and hunting of elusive prey, humanoid or otherwise, were all excellent examples of jobs better suited to solo adventurers than teams. Many of these solo adventurers had other issues, beyond just not having a team to back them up, including paranoia, traumatic experiences, and a deplorable lack of personality.

“Well, if you want to be a hybrid, then you really will need the trainer that I have in mind. I’ll see about sending him a message as soon as we’re done here. In the meantime we will need to get started on your training with what we can do for now. There are a few things we can cover while we wait for him to make up his mind, and some rules that I know he will insist on as well. For starters, no matter how many levels you gain while Classless, you will spend none of your stat points. Not a single one. The reason for this is that you can only train your stats while Classless, but having spent points makes it harder to earn new ones. In addition, you will need to….” Thunk stopped talking with a pensive look on his face, eyes roaming all over the room, and then Dix’s person. Dix was a little lost as to the reason behind the sudden change in behavior. Shortly, Thunk asked after what was bothering him, “I don’t mean to be rude, but where is Tuti?”

Dix twitched as flashbacks to the worst moments in his non life came back to him. Growling, he replied, “She said she was going to come down here with me, so I drowned her in an empty fish tank.” Seeing the dwarf’s jaw drop, he smiled. “Don’t get upset, even the gods thanked me for that one.” Laughing he took up his tankard for a drink, but first had to tap mugs with Thunk who was thanking him with a twinkle in his eye.

“Ah, thank you for that. Everyone tries to kill her once they have to put up with her here, but she’s immortal on Mantra. Luckily, she can only stick around each person until they gain a couple of levels, so not many people have completely lost their minds. It also gives you a much better chance of getting the trainer, as he refuses to work anywhere near Tuti. One of his rules is that you need to find a way to lock her up during the periods of time you train with him, but it’s actually impossible. She always gets out. Instead, I just have people go gain a few levels before they start working with him. The sad part is that doing so loses out on a fair period of his help, leading to people making bad mistakes, and worse choices. You will need to gain one level though, with no help from anyone, before he’ll take you on as a student.”

Dix interjected before Thunk could continue speaking. “Why exactly do I need this guy again? Can’t I just level and train on my own?”

Thunk just stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “You haven’t read the descriptions for your Devouring Stride have you?” When Dix shook his head in the negative, he said, “Go ahead, I’ll wait.”

Scanning through his status, it only took him a moment to find the Devouring Stride. Focusing on it brought up its description panel. It was quite the interesting read.

Devouring Stride

Skills absorbed: 35

Time Remaining: 200

The Devourer was a demon of great power that united his people in their time of greatest need. He didn’t unite them through his charisma and speaking abilities, nor through right of birth. Even force of arms couldn’t have swayed his people, for time was in short supply. Instead he united them through almost endless hunger. He ate them. As he consumed his people, he absorbed their skills, adding them to his own. He became not just the sum of their parts, but something much, much more.

Much like the Devourer himself, the Devouring line of skills also absorb other skills of the same type. Devouring Stride is a movement skill, and will consume any skill related to the movement of the body to grow in strength. Each skill consumed will become a sub skill, but can still be used to form new skills that will then also be devoured. All sub skills work in conjunction for all types of movement. Benefits gained are cumulative. One percent increase in all aspects of all sub skills of Devouring Stride per number of skills consumed.

Beware the skills of the Devourer, for they must be fed a constant stream of nourishment, lest they consume their owner, or die before they can grow stronger.

“Ok, that’s ominous and confusing. What the hell does it all mean?” Dix understood the mathematics of the skill, but the time portion was what seemed to be missing information. He also didn’t like the threat of his skill eating him. Luckily, Thunk had some answers for him.

“As the description says, there is a whole line of skills named after aspects of the Devourer. They all work basically the same way, but some are simply more effective than others. Devouring Fist, for example, has the same basic mechanics, but works only on hand to hand combat styles. No weapon based skills can combine with it. It needs a system recognized martial art that has at least one punch in it as nourishment. That’s why Stride is so much better than a lot of the other options; all it needs is some sort of skill that helps the body move, including martial arts. It’s only downside is that it can’t absorb the weapon skills.

“As for the other parts of the skill, well, they can be a little troublesome. First, is the number of skills absorbed, and how it relates to the skill consuming the owner. As the number of skills absorbed increases, the likelihood of the skill consuming the owner drops, ceasing almost completely around one fifty. Even if you can’t get that many skills in time, the chance that you get eaten by your own skill is greatly reduced after seventy five, although it’s almost guaranteed below that.” This information did not immediately cheer Dix up, or make him any happier about having a skill that wanted to eat him. After Thunk mentioned that it could absorb martial arts, he got a little more excited about it, but there was still the time frame to worry about. He didn’t have to ask about it, as the dwarf was continuing his explanation.

“The time remaining can get a bit… odd. Apparently, the speed at which the timer drops changes as the skill absorbs others, as well as some other factors. Thankfully, no matter the skill absorbed, the timer is always reset. A lower tier skill, such as running, would be a less filling meal and would therefore leave the skill hungry sooner than a higher tier skill such as conditioning. Basically, the harder it is to get the skill, the slower the timer drops. So gather up as many of the low hanging fruit early on, then combine them to slow the timer when you need the time to gather up the information for another batch of skills.

“When time runs out, the growth of the skill through consumption stops. At that point it can no longer absorb new skills, and the name will change. As far as I am aware, it is unknown if there is an upper limit to the number of skills it can handle, or if it is just always hungry. Also unknown is how to get the Devouring skills in the first place. Any information on how you earned them could be extremely valuable to the right people. Just something to keep in mind.” The dwarf ended with a wink, then reached for his drink.

Dix was still a little confused as to why he needed a trainer specifically because of Devouring Stride. He could still think of a lot of different skills he could feed the hungry little bugger, starting with all of his martial arts. The idea of a trainer still weighed on him, so he asked. “So why do I need a trainer for this? I have a lot of things I can think of that should work for it.”

Thunk snorted, some of his ale shooting out of his nose, setting off some mumbled cursing as he pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose like a trumpet. “Let me guess. You can think of fifteen or twenty more skills you can feed it, right?” At Dix’s nod, he continued. “The trainer I am looking to hire for you is one of the few masters of a Devouring skill. As such, his Devouring Stride has absorbed over a hundred skills. And he has a book detailing how to get each and every one. Think that might be worthwhile?”

All Dix could say was, “Oh.”