The music changed to a single drum beating, like a heart. The anticipation grew as the seconds passed.

Henry didn’t charge at the shopkeeper like she thought, instead he advanced rather slowly. When he was within striking distance, he attacked. A slash from upper right to bottom left. The Shopkeeper deflected it with ease, only moving her sword arm in defence. Henry was ready for it, and used the momentum from the previous blow, he spun and did a horizontal slash. The Shopkeeper’s foot landed squarely on his back, causing him to fall on his face. He was about to push himself back up when a sword stabbed the ground next to his head.

“You just died. Spars over”

Henry got up.

“Again” he said

The shopkeeper raised her good eye brow.

“Your form is contradictory to your actions, though you started out well, nice balanced steps. It started to fall apart when you attacked. You completely gave up control for power, and while that’s good and all, you don’t exactly have the build for it.”

“Well if you’re so smart, train me to become better.”

“Ok then. But it will cost money.”

“How much?”

“How high is your sword mastery?”

“Advanced level 7.”

“With that stance and form? Wow.” her voice held surprise and sarcasm

Crossing her arms she said

“Ok then kid, I’ll teach you a proper stance and form, none of that home made stumbling around, waving a sword like a club. It will be an actual combat stance, useful in single combat, which you obviously lack in and in crowd combat. You never want to be the person blamed for a an ally’s death. Bad for reputation and your health.”

“I asked for a training, not a ruthless instructor who gives out free insults.”

The Shopkeeper smiled

“Suck it up kid, until you can get a legitimate hit on me, there’s no way you can win. And even if you could hit me, you’d be dead before you got the chance.”

“I’m 23” Henry said

“What?”

Henry looked up

“I said I’m 23. I am not a kid.”

“Congratulations, you're ‘young’, big deal. Do you know who else was 23?”

“Who?”

“Your dad when he finally got married.”

Henry raised his eyebrow.

“Really. I was expecting it to be harsher”

The shopkeeper rolled her eye

“The point is you have no real style, no foundation. Although you did start in the right place, as a person who can’t control their sword swings ends up over swinging. However it is obvious that you forgot this, favoring for a more attack oriented style, which is counter intuitive to your foundation.”

Henry sighed and said

“What do you want me to do about it. I’m a cartographer, not a fighter. I’m not one of those Fighting freaks who are already in the 520’s. You do realise that leveling while this time takes about three days per level. I’ve been playing casually for years and i’m only at level 162”

“What you can do is train your basics. From the looks of it you forgot the basics and went right on to advanced techniques. Considering you level, I can help you train up to a certain point. At that point you have to follow your own path, no one can help you with it after that.”

“What's the cost for the training?”

“About 1420 gold, nothing much.”

Henry’s jaw dropped. The basic training ground cost 1 gold to use, an instructor cost 9 more. Even the known highest level trainer didn’t cost over a 1000 gold.

And yet here in the boonies of a small village on the most remote region, a Shopkeeper was offering to train him, with a huge cost. It was either worth every gold or a total scam. It was still very likely that she was a player and not an NPC, and couldn’t even train him.

“Is it possible to get a discount?”

“Didn’t you read the sign, no bartering, you’ll lose more that way. And by the way that was the discount. However, since you really need help I’ll lend you a book.”

Henry looked dubious. “What’s a book got to do with anything?”

The Shopkeeper smirked, “You’ll be surprised.” she said while walking back into the shop, picking up both practice swords on the way. Henry’s had been flung out of his hand when he got kicked to the ground.

Henry followed along, getting a better chance to look at the interior of the shop. It was cluttered with weapons. Two rows were full of swords, ranging from iron to what looked like bronze. Near the back was were mannequins covered in all types of armor. Leather, fur, iron, steel, and another one that looked like it was part of a military. Henry smiled, laughing at some of the poses the mannequins were in. the military one and a barbarian looking mannequin had their arms up in a ready boxing position, as if they were two sides in the heat of battle, facing each other. Another set looked even more ridiculous, with a scantily clad one holding a dagger in one hand, and a heart in the other; there was a weird briar inside of the chest of the mannequin. Bows were unstrung, and hanging up on the wall. There were some fancy ones, and one that Henry thought looked a lot like glass.

Behind the counter there were cool claws, made out of all different materials. Though they all looked almost identical.

“Wait here.” She said as she opened the door to what Henry presumed to be the forge.

As the door swung open he got a glance inside, and saw an unfinished sword, cooling in the center of the forge, it’s blade upright to prevent warping while it finished cooling.

It was unlike anything he had seen in the shop, it seemed foreign. It’s form was pitch black, it’s blade slightly curving back, like the moon on a cloudless night. It was too long to be a one handed weapon, yet it looked light enough to be swung like a short sword. Unfinished runes were etched in the blade. The smoke from the heat of the forge could still be seen, hiding the rest of the shop from view.

The door closed and Henry was brought out of his daze. This was obviously the master smith the forums talked about, but it couldn’t be possible, as the entity in question was too smart to be an AI. However all clues pointed to this person. She apparently liked solitude, yet helped apparently helped anyone who came through her door.

The Shopkeeper returned with a book in hand, it’s light brown cover devoid of any title or indication of the story contained inside.

“This should help you, while it’s important to hit an enemy, if you happen to hit where they have a strong defence, it won’t do anything .”

Henry opened the cover, seeing the title of the story

-Night Falls on Sentinel-

By: Boali

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Read it, what else do you use a book for, paper weight? Fire starter?”

“I honestly don’t see how this will help.”

A notification appeared before Henry

*Quest: Read the Book

Description: just read the book

Reward: knowing the contents of the book, may be some exp if you finish it under 45 minutes

Difficulty: it’s just reading a book bro

Limitations: you just have to be able to read

Lose condition: Shopkeeper takes the book back

“Well? Are you going to read, or are you illiterate?”

“I can read just fine.”

------------------------

30 minutes later

------------------------

*Congratulations, you have completed the quest: Read the Book

Reward: Swordsmanship: up 2 levels.

Critical points on a humanoid target found, 50% more likely to hit these points, causing a critical hit.

100 exp

Although the book itself seemed like a normal book, it’s contents were anything normal. Strange words and race names were in the book, locations he had never heard of listed off just like that.

“May I ask where you got this book?” Henry asked tentatively.

“I got it from my former home.”

“Former?”

“If you couldn’t tell, I’m not from around here.”

“Well then where are you from?”

“A long way aways. Even if you tried to travel there you would never make it.”

“How’d you arrive.”

“I was forced to come here. Teleported by a spell of a kind” She said, turning back to the go to the forge.

She opened the door, turning her head over her shoulder, looking at him with her Blazing Emerald eye.

“Now if you’re done here, I suggest you be on your way.”

“I’d like to buy the steel sword.”

“It’s not a toy kid, it’s a weapon. Designed to maim, injure, and kill. In the right hands it can take hundreds of lives.”

“I said I’m not a kid, I already…” He didn’t get time to finish his sentence as the shopkeeper turned back to face him, yelling at him from behind the counter.

“That you already what? Killed a man? Seen the horror in their eyes as they realised their life was over? The blood oozing down your sword, dripping onto your hands that are clinging to the sword for dear life, because you know that’s the only thing keeping you alive? The feeling of seeing your home go up in flames? No? Good. I hope you never have to experience that.”

She ended her short outburst as quickly as it had started.

Henry replied to her, his voice barely audible compared to the previous booming sound of the Shopkeeper’s. His voice slowly building into a low shout.

“May be I want to use it to protect. Maybe that’s why I chose balance at first. Maybe that person betrayed me, Maybe that's why I chose to go more offencive in fighting. Maybe if Sarah hadn’t sold me out, I would be the guild master. Maybe that’s why I restarted my character. I may have not had a horrible childhood like yours, or whatever your life was llike. but I’ll be damned sure that I won’t allow it to happen to others.”

The two of them looked at each other. Henry was huffing.

Then the Shopkeeper smirked, standing up straight and said with a broad smile.

“You pass.”