The discussion with his trainers went about how he had thought it would. Error reminded Dix of the rules he had agreed to for his training, specifically the one about needing to go it on his own while training. It wasn’t how Dix had heard that particular rule, but he knew arguing would get him nowhere. Thunk pointed out that he needed to keep some of his skills on the down low, as well as needing better skill training. That particular argument reminded Error that his new trainee needed more training for his combat skills, instead of just his Devouring Stride. All of which led to Dix heading off to the first, non experience granting, floor of the training dungeon for portions of his days without school. In between school, dungeon runs, stat training, library searches, and his tutors he still somehow found time to sleep.

It took another week before they finally got the notices they had been waiting for. Both the enchanter and Thunk’s mage friend would meet him the next day. As he laid in bed the night before he would get to further his magical education, Dix contemplated his gains over the week since he had last looked at his stats and skills. Most of his physical stats had climbed to twelve, with the exception of Vitality that was still at thirteen. Sadly, that same growth had been absent from both his magical and soul stats. He hadn’t practiced any of his magical skills, so the lack of growth there had been expected. His Soul stats were another matter entirely.

Dix had surmised that what had caused the original growth in those stats had been his martial arts training. More precisely, the attempts he had made at syncing his martial arts to the strange surging currents he had felt while practicing them. However, despite his best efforts, he had not only failed to raise those stats, but he also appeared even farther away from syncing his actions to that feeling. The harder he tried, the farther he seemed to be from succeeding. He planned to take a break from attempting it any further until he thought of another way to proceed.

On a happier note, he had been visited by his “Scouting” tutor. The being had been so secretive and shadowy that Dix had no idea of the race, gender, or even dimensions of this newest tutor. All that aside, the person had been an excellent teacher. Sleight of Hand was a passive that fed straight into Devouring Stride, and while it would be wonderful for helping with the Pickpocketing skill he had learned, he was more interested in how it would affect his combat going forward. Strip had fed straight into the other similar skills he had learned, finally netting him Processing. As for his dreams of gaining Backstab, they went unfulfilled. There was no such skill. Instead, there were class based skills to provide bonuses to unanticipated strikes, sneak attacks, and strikes made while unseen. Even Dix didn’t think he could figure out how to get those skills without the classes that awarded them, and there were no corresponding general skills.

His dungeon runs had been focused entirely on skill training, meaning he left off using his Enhanced skills unless there was an emergency. Thunk and Error had also decided he would not be using spells until he had spent some time with an actual mage, mostly to make sure he didn’t do anything he shouldn’t. That left him with very few skills to work on. Devouring Stride, Empower, Touch of Death, and Raise Dead all grew a few levels, but he was disgruntled with the changes it enforced on his combat style. Mainly he simply sent his rats in as a swarm, double teaming two enemies, having the last rat hold off another. He would solo the last two enemies. He also added a fifth rat to his group, naming it Sasha. To his dismay, none of his rats had gained any levels, leading him to rethink his original idea on the Tamer class and their pets. He was hoping to find a few Tamers near the training dungeon when he had some freetime in the future to pick their brains.

All in all, he was worn out, frustrated, and bored. Knowing he was on edge, he had skipped his normal library time, and simply headed to sleep. If the magical training didn’t play out as expected, he would be ignoring all attempts to keep him from practicing and learning on his own. He still had a lot of time before his year-long deadline ended, but progress was not only slower than he had anticipated, it was also being forcibly stopped by rules he didn’t care for. The only reason his patience had held so long was that he knew his trainers were trying to help.

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Across town, Rupert and his son Charles were going over their latest information on the younger’s new problem. The lacking amount of information they could find on Dix would be disconcerting, if not for the one thing they could discern: he was a transfer. This was both a good and bad piece of information. While it explained the lack of information they could find on him, and was a virtual guarantee of him not having any family they needed to worry about, it also made him an enigma with no one they could threaten. The mixed news continued. His current trainers were two of the more powerful people in town. Those two in particular were not only interested in their trainee, but were capable of protecting him or exacting revenge if they failed to do so. And again, neither could be bought or threatened. With this amount of backing along with a failure to intimidate there was really only one place they had a reasonable chance to get away with anything they planned. The dungeon.

With a location chosen, it was now time to discover a time. Once more shadowy servants were dispatched with messages and tasks. The sudden interest in a particular transfer was noted by other dwellers in the shadows. Purpose and motive was analyzed and possible threat estimated. No possible threat to their own interests, and only minimal threat to someone who had recently received training through their organization. The people who made these estimates were very, very good at what they did, but that didn’t mean they were always right. This time they were catastrophically wrong.

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The next day, Dix was up and ready quite early. His first stop for the day was the Enchanter’s shop. It was a rather odd construction that he had passed a few times during his time in Pursue. To Dix it looked like a cross between a flower and an alien house. The main shop was on the ground, facing the street, just like any other shop. The amount of space between it and its neighbors seemed a little on the wider side, nearly as large as the space alchemists were given. The shop itself was a medium sized boxy building that had been covered in glowing scripts, pictograms, and esoteric symbologies. Dix thought it was a combination of Christmas lights, Vegas casinos, and bad psychic advertisements, but that wasn’t the strangest thing about it.

Out of the sides of the building came a dozen tubes, large enough to hold people, that twisted and turned their way into the sky before ending in pods. Essentially small rooms designed to function as workshops, these pods were simply a safety precaution. Enchanting could be a very dangerous process, particularly for those still learning. Too many types of mana in a small area, or overloading an item’s innate mana storage, or incorrectly inscribing an item, all of these most often ended in explosions. To protect the shop, its wildly expensive contents, and the master of all it employed, the pods were built. As even those weren’t a perfect solution, the main building of the shop was also enchanted to the absolute maximum of what it could manage to contain.

Dix’s entrance to the building went largely unnoticed, as there was a bit of an argument underway within. On the far side of the counter was a young looking elven girl. Under normal circumstances she, like all of the other elves Dix had seen, would be the owner of a face so beautiful it would make the poets and painters of Earth weep. In the current circumstances, those being a screaming match with the girl on his side of the counter, her features were twisted into something quite fearful. She reminded him of those women from TV shows that were regarded as beautiful, kind, and popular, except at the exact moment they finally snap and reveal the dastardly villain behind the mask. At the moment, she was leaning over the counter screaming, swearing, and almost spitting in rage at the person across from her. She was gripping the counter so tight it looked like she was trying to tear holes in the glass with her fingers.

His side of the counter was occupied by what looked, at first glance, to be a little girl. A second glance would reveal the broad shoulders, wide hips, and strong musculature of a female dwarf. The short stature, bright red hair, and twin pigtails had confused the issue for him. Unlike the elven girl, she didn’t seem all that upset, instead laughing in the face of the seething elf. He could only see a portion of her face from his angle, but just that portion of it was enough to know it was covered in freckles and a smirk. When her laughter cut off she said, “Good luck with that, buttercup. Your daddy would have you out on your skinny ass in a heartbeat if you tried to break the contract he made. But please, do try.”

Dix was honestly a might bit worried about the elven girl after that remark when her head snapped back from the dwarfs response. He would have expected violence, but the elf had turned so red he honestly thought her head would explode before she could try. Her whole body was shaking, her teeth were bared in a grimace and looked to be on the verge of shattering at the force she was exerting to keep her mouth shut. Her hands raised, fingers crooked like claws, before she balled them into fists. As she threw her hands down to her sides, her head rolled back, and she screamed out her frustration to the sky. Dix could feel the mana that had been roiling inside of her ejected with the scream, giving a visual distortion to the soundwaves leaving her mouth, and solidifying her name in his head as Banshee forevermore.

As the scream rolled on and on, Dix watched the dwarf’s smile grow. It was a smile he recognized, as he often wore it himself. A smile of vicious satisfaction at seeing vindictive justice done. He was vicariously enjoying her satisfaction, when her expression shifted to concern, just as he caught motion from the corner of his eye. Looking over, he saw an older, but still young looking, elven man enter the shop from a curtained off area. Worry and resignation warred across his face as he saw the girl wailing behind the counter. Her screaming was finally tapering off as she ran out of air. With a sigh, the man raised a hand and blasted her with some sort of spell just as she finished. Dix didn’t see exactly how the spell was enacted, but he didn’t believe it was cast, so he assumed it was an enchanted item. The spell knocked the girl’s knees out from under her, but caught her on a cushion of air as her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she fell unconscious.

The sudden silence in the aftermath left all three still awake occupants of the shop looking relieved and embarrassed in equal measure. The elven man sighed again as he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He sucked in a deep breath, held it for a second, then breathed it out heavily before opening his eyes again. Looking to the dwarven girl he said, “Lil’, if you could wait a moment, I will retrieve your payment. I may also have another lucrative task for you as well, if things go as I expect.” He waited for the girl to nod before speaking to Dix.

“You are the one Error and Thunk sent my way, yes?” Once more he waited for confirmation, then continued, gesturing at the passed out elf girl below him, “As you can see, my shop is having some difficulties at the moment. Instead of rescheduling for another time, perhaps you would consider another option?” This time he pointed to the dwarven girl, ”Lil’ is an accomplished enchanter, as well as being skilled at a number of other crafting professions. If you both agree, I could pass the payment from Thunk along to her, with a small bonus for taking time from her schedule, and still get what you need accomplished today. It is likely she can link you to any other crafting based repositories you are still missing at the same time, although I don’t know the arrangements that Thunk has made for you.”

In the silence that followed the enchanter’s words, Dix contemplated the request. The original plan was to get the repository link, and then attempt to pass whatever test the man had before being allowed to learn the skill that would help him with elemental damage. Changing tutors to the girl wasn’t part of the plan, but it did have possibilities. The elven enchanter was proffering this option as a direct alternative with possible benefits, but Dix was interpreting it as a minor favor. Possibly an unasked for favor, but still something that could be leveraged into getting the training he needed. On the other hand, if this girl was as good as he had stated, then perhaps he could talk her into training him herself. The problem with that plan was that he had no idea what the skill was called, how it functioned, or what it did, so he had no idea what specifically he was looking to get. The worst case for him in this situation was that the dwarfette had no idea what he was supposed to learn, and the elf didn’t view his inconvenience of changing tutors as a worthy enough compensation for learning the skill. In that case he would be mostly back to square one. At best, the girl would teach him what he needed, and the elf would owe him a favor.

With a mental shrug, Dix turned to the dwarven girl and asked, “Do you have time to teach me this morning?”

For her part, the girl just studied both men, calculating the fallout of this particular deal in the ways that her mother had taught her for dealing with men. Trouble versus money. The enchanter was a known quantity of both; his money was good, but his daughter was a screaming bitch of epic proportions. It didn’t always end in her passing out, but she’d gotten worse in the last several months. The newcomer though, he was unknown. As her eyes swept the man from head to toe, they slowly widened. From what she could see, the man was already the best customer she never had. Most of the weaponry he was carrying had been made by her, including that set of knives some idiotic low level rogue had commisioned then never picked up, as were the bandoliers and belts that held it all. A closer look showed that the pack was still stuck to the back of the crossed bandoliers that held it. Even most of the armor pieces he had on had been made by her. None of them were things she was particularly proud of, but they had mostly been things she made for training. Even then, they were better than the crooked spear, and shitty but serviceable hammer he had. If the man liked her low tiered items this much, he was bound to become one of her better customers. Introducing him to all of the things she could do while he was still so easily persuaded could keep him coming back nearly forever.

Sketching a slight bow, she introduced herself. “Lilliana Stonehammer at your service. Enchanter, blacksmith, leatherworker, tailor, and alchemist. If it can be made, I can make it. Or at least, eventually.” Her words petered off at the end as she over exaggerated. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but she still needed her class, not to mention levels, to really be able to hold up her claims. As the two men stared at her, she started babbling as her nervousness increased. Her mind was racing, cursing herself at chasing away her first, and best, customer before she even managed to get him to pay her for something, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I mean, when I get my class. I’m really close, and then I’ll be the best. With some levels. If the things I come up with would actually work, unlike that stupid backpack.” Her voice started getting softer, until they were straining to hear her.

Dix’s eyes lit up when she mentioned the backpack though, and he lunged forward, grabbing her shoulders. Her muttering stopped and her eyes went wide as she tried to lurch back in fear of the much larger man. Her fear abated somewhat when she saw the wide smile on his face. He looked slightly unhinged, but happy. His grip was a little tight, but he obviously wasn’t trying to hurt her.

His voice was almost manic when he spoke, “You made this? That’s amazing! I can’t wait to learn what you can teach me. Oh, I also fixed the bag. Check it out!” So saying, he stepped back, turning sideways so she could more clearly see the backpack still connected to all of its straps. Just as she started worrying over her failed contraption again, his hand jerked on his chest and the bag fell to the ground, just like her jaw.