As the group continued their approach, Dix took a moment to study them a little bit closer. The canine based species were humanoid, but had some differences to humans. The main ones were the fur that covered them from the neck down, and the various differences along the skull, mostly sensory based. Their ears were more dog-like, as well as their nose and jaw, which were more like a muzzle. These changes also altered the shape of the skull, slimming and elongating it somewhat, the cheekbones also vanishing as that location was the anchoring point for the muzzle. Finally, they had tails. Other than these differences, they were nearly a match for humans. Same structures for support of the body, as well as supporting internal systems in roughly the same areas. Even the hands and feet had the same number of fingers and toes. Dix surmised that the tail would give them better balance during combat, which would be countered by having another limb to be targeted, only this one couldn’t be reliably armored.

In contrast to the three canines, the orc and gnome were almost human. The gnome girl was essentially just a proportionally scaled down human, albeit with some rather odd colorations. Her hair was hot pink with streaks of brilliant yellow, and her eyes were violet. Standing at only three and a half feet tall, her body was otherwise an exact replica of a cheerleader he had once known. Judging by the glint in her eye as she studied Dix in return, she was a replica of that cheerleader in more ways than one. To try and keep himself from treading too far along that dangerous path, Dix turned his gaze to the orc. He knew his cursory glance would come back to bite him, but it was safer than the other option.

The orc woman, Dix refused to think of her as a girl, was a full head taller than himself. Her skin wasn’t the pale and faded green that orcs were often reputed to have in games and books, instead being a vibrant emerald. The large amount of skin on display was nearly shining with the vibrancy of the life it contained. Additionally, she out bulked him by a considerable margin. It wasn’t that she was fat, as the only visible fat on her was her breasts. Instead it was her skeletal and muscular structures. The woman was broader across the shoulders than he was, and significantly more muscular. Unlike his expectations, she didn’t have the muscle definition of a professional bodybuilder, just the muscle size and mass. She was actually the very definition of big boned, being larger than a human woman, but maintaining the same shape to her figure. Despite her being wider than any woman he had yet met, he couldn’t wait to get a better view of her from behind. Her leather armor was helping him redefine form fitting, as it only really had any actual armor in a few places, none of which protected her from his lecherous gaze. All sorts of fantastic parts of her shimmied and shook as she stalked after the others.

Shaking his head to free himself from the hypnosis of the orc woman’s walk, Dix met the eyes of the tank as he approached. His coloring, mostly various shades of gray, and fur length suggested he had descended from something similar to a husky or wolf, as did his ice blue eyes. Dix hid the smirk he wanted to employ when he realized the kid was basically the caricature of an anime hero. Young, handsome, eager, hard working, and completely oblivious to the interest of his closest female companion, as well as how the world truly works. Then again, maybe Mantra works differently enough that he understands it better than I do, Dix thought. He managed to hide the grimace that thought brought just as he had the smirk from before.

The kid in the lead stepped up and proffered a hand, saying, “Hey, I’m Jack. Welcome to Mantra.”

Dix quickly thought through his options, settling on politeness, and shook his hand, keeping his own response short. “Thanks. Call me Dix.” There were a couple of raised eyebrows at his name, but he was used to that.

Jack quickly started introducing the rest of his party. “This is Lydia, our healer,” the female canine, “and her brother Ramsey, our support,” the other male. Pointing at the orc woman he said, “That’s Riot, or damage dealer. It’s not her real name, but it’s so hard to pronounce that she lets other people call her that. And finally, Py-”

Before he could finish, he was interrupted by the gnome girl saying, “I can introduce myself, you Sasquatch!” Dix was a little surprised to hear the word sasquatch, but figured they must be a type of monster. It would make more sense if they were large and furry, as a demi canine was certainly that to a gnome. The small girl strode forward, that hungry glint in her eye back in full force. Cocking a hip to one side with a tiny hand planted on it, she slowly trailed the other hand up the side of her torso, from hip to head, outlining each succulent curve on her tiny body. She finished up by briefly sucking on her own fingers before offering the hand to Dix, saying, “KinderRocket HookSchnaap, for your pleasure. Pyro to these unappreciative furballs. Fire Magus extraordinaire!”

Her display brought to Dix’s attention that he was nearly back to normal after the savaging he had taken from Lust. At the moment he wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. Having no idea of the proper way to respond to Pyro’s provocative greeting and slightly wet hand, he decided to match wrong with wrong. He dropped to one knee, and tucked a hand under hers to bring it to his own lips. Instead of kissing her hand, he treated it in much the same manner she had, sucking and nipping at each of her fingers in turn. By the time he spoke she was squirming and flushed. “An absolute delight to meet you, Miss HookSchnaap. As for my pleasure, well, do you believe it would fit?”

The three canines and Pyro all froze as their minds tried to process the statement he had made. The gnome’s mouth dropped open as she thought it alllllll the way through. Riot smiled slightly, giving Dix a brief glimpse of the “tusks” her race was rumored to have. They weren’t what he had been expecting. Instead of two tusks jutting out of the sides of her jaw, or even just two overly large teeth like the extinct smilodon from Earth’s past, she instead had slightly long and thick upper and lower canine teeth, like a feral vampire. It was both terrifying, and exciting. Her chuckle broke the silence, setting off the dogs, and sending Pyro to blushing and giggling at the same time. Pyro had been interested in the Folk since she walked in the door of the class, and despite school not being the place for her little joke, she was happy he had played along and teased her in return.

When the laughter stopped, Jack quickly dove into the real reasons he had led his group over. “It really is nice to meet you, and I do have a question for you, but I need to warn you first.” At that, Dix turned to give Jack his full attention. “While you were right to deny Charles, you went farther than he will be able to tolerate. Be careful in the future, he’s not one to suffer defeat easily, or wisely. Despite his supposed ‘nobility’, he’s nothing but a scumbag. Unfortunately, his father is loaded, and he gives Charles access to far too much money for anyone of his age and temperament. He once tried to corner and molest Lydia, but we managed to stop him. Even now, he keeps insisting that a,” he paused, leaning closer to whisper to Dix, ”bitch should know her place.” Leaning back, he continued, “We’re lucky that that is as far as he has gone with us, but there are rumors of other people who have had encounters with him disappearing.”

Dix smiled at the youngster’s earnest desire to help him. It wasn’t something he was used to seeing in another person. As he thought of the other side of that coin, the wealthy scion named Charles, his smile faded. His brow drew downward as he thought over the options. He really wasn’t ready to be taking on someone with the amount of powerful trouble that money could guide his way. While it may be a lesser volume of power to be gained through money in this world compared to Earth, it would still be far more than he could truly handle. For the moment, the safest things he could do would be to avoid travelling alone, speak to his trainers, and rely on Return for going home. He decided to hunt down Thunk before heading to sleep to make sure that no one could buy their way into the church to kill him when his Return brought him back. After another thought, he decided to change the location of his Beacon from his room. He could move it to a bunch of different places, but the safest would be either Thunk’s office, or Error’s room.

Turning his attention back to Jack, he said, “Thanks for the heads up. He could have blind sided me easily without your help. I appreciate it.” He held out his hand once more.

Jack shook his hand with a grin, saying, “Happy to help. There is one other thing though.” He waited for Dix to nod before continuing. “I am guessing, since you are in this class, that you are taking the three main classes right now.” He didn’t wait for Dix’s confirmation before continuing. “That means that one of your classes is Team Tactics, starting tomorrow morning. Seeing as how you don’t appear to have an actual team, would you like to join us for the exercises?” Spotting the confusion and hesitation on Dix’s face, Jack explained, “To get through the class people will have to work in actual teams of anywhere from three to ten people. There will also be a number of assignments that require visits to the dungeon as teams. At least this way you won’t get stuck with someone working for Charles Rupertson.”

Dix smiled at the kid’s final attempt to get him to join. It may have been a far fetched idea, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. While he wanted to carefully think over the possibilities, and inspect his options when class started the next day, he never got the chance. “Sounds like a plan,” were the words he heard come out of his mouth, his subconscious taking charge briefly. Another round of handshakes, without the drama, and they were gone. A short time later, after his Return activated, so was Dix.

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

Across town, in the higher end housing district, a boy came home. Charles was still seething about the treatment he had received from the Folk that had broken his knee so badly. His guard had healed it up at the school after helping remove him from the classroom, but humiliation could only be cured with blood. His other guard had attempted to make a complaint, but they knew it would be useless. No one would come forward to be a witness, and there was no one they could bribe in the guild to take care of the problem internally. By the time he had bathed, changed, and eaten he was only slightly calmer. The summons to his father’s study was not unexpected.

Charles Rupertson looked at his father Rupert Bernardson behind his expansive desk. His father was the epitome of a rich gentleman of stature and means. Impeccably coiffed hair, waxed and curled mustache, and decadent clothing made of expensive materials completely useless for defense that were perfectly fitted to his thick body. His father even maintained the perfect body weight, too fat to have ever bothered to fight anything, but not so fat that he appeared to have let himself go. If required, he could still fight, but would never be first on the list. A dark smile briefly graced the face of Charles as he thought over the idea of his father fighting. He was one of very few people that was aware that his father’s supposedly benign non-combat class was anything but.

Their family, The Sons, had a long history of ferreting out secrets. Perhaps the greatest secret they had ever discovered was the one that gave them the power to become the prominent family that they had proved themselves to be over the last several decades. Part merchant, part rogue, part warrior, the Sons had a powerful and versatile class almost entirely to themselves, including the upgrades. While the basic class wasn’t the best around, it was perfectly situated to provide the foundation for what came next. The class truly came into its own once it upgraded. Merchant of Death. Merchant of War. Merchant of Information. There were more, many more. All of them were a Merchant of Something. Charles aspired to the class of Merchant of Conquest. As with all of the classes his family used, they would Appraise as a Merchant, exactly as someone expected from a mercantile family. Only when they were in grave danger, or complete secrecy, were they allowed to reveal the truth behind their classes.

The problem of the moment for Charles was how to explain what had happened at school today to his father. There was no pity in his father, only the drive to succeed and surpass all others. His father, Rupert, was determined to be the best of The Sons that had ever lived. And by best, he meant financially and politically wealthy beyond all others. For now though, his schemes lingered on Pursue. Rupert knew he would need the whole city in his corner before he could proceed to the cities nearer the capital. To speed up this timeline, he had sent his only son to the schooling offered at the Guild. He would have sent his son anyways, as their family had always been secret adventurers, and the Guild offered the best training for all classes.

As Charles gave his obviously biased report of what happened today at class, Rupert contemplated the failure. He had already heard the report from his son's guards. The two men, who were only slightly higher than Charles in level, had been worth every penny. They were not only loyal to the protection of his son, but also to himself. When he had first been approached about buying the guards for his son, he had scoffed at the idea of complete loyalty. As the anecdotes had piled up, he eventually caved and spent the exorbitant amount of money to acquire them. They were trained to be loyal to the head of the house in all things, with the person they guarded second. In this case it meant that despite their failure to protect his son from his own actions, they had immediately reported the entire incident to Rupert. When he eventually retired, their loyalty would go to his son. Until then, they were his guardians, spies, and tools, as well as the backbone of his son’s future party.

Charles continued to create excuses for his miserable failure, but Rupert was no longer listening. He had only wanted his son to take some responsibility for his actions, but only got the same pathetic complaints instead. If he didn’t need him for his future plans, he would simply bring one of his other bastard sons to the city instead. Well, this son might be a failure in some things, but he could still prove useful. He raised a hand, stopping Charles' continuing efforts. Seeing he had his son’s full attention, he spoke. “In this case, I believe the best option is to have you take care of this on your own. Feel free to use any resources you need, but no matter what you plan, you must bring it to me before you enact it. I have waited too long for this opportunity to have you screw it up. Until the start of the next round of classes, you will continue to train, as well as seeing your tutors. Now go.”

As his son scurried off, Rupert contemplated differing ways to deal with the current difficulties. Truthfully, there was no real issue. Charles starting classes a week or two later wouldn’t truly delay the timeline, but it would give him less time to go over the acquired information, leaving possible holes in future plans. He could certainly buy the information that he wanted, but that would leave someone questioning why he wanted it. That line of questioning would undoubtedly lead to further discoveries and difficulties. No, for now, the safest option was patience. His son’s retaliation shouldn’t cause any problems either, simply another disappearance. Reviewing the information the guards had reported to him about Charles’ actions, he knew that the student in question was a transfer. Normally those would be the safest of targets, but he decided to be doubly sure. They could afford no mistakes. With that decided, he made a note to have his agents look into the man more. It may also help his son concoct a better plan than knifing someone in an alley and having his guards dispose of the body. Well, if Charles failed again, he could join his elder brothers in death. Rupert’s next oldest son would soon be of age to begin training for the family Class.