When at last I figured out how to get home, all I could think of was magic. The carrot of getting new spells combined with the stick of possibly losing my provisionary apprenticeship did wonders to light a fire under my ass. I spent a fairly ridiculous amount of time in the shower for the rest of the day, using it as a water-safe environment for casting Conjure Water over and over and over again.

Much to my dismay, the cantrip refused to level, but it was just a matter of time. When the monotony of it at last became too much to bear, I switched to a series of exercises that the archmage had shown me during the mana manipulation portion of our lesson. I pinched and prodded at my newly-discovered mana core, yanking out threads of mana and trying to twist them around.

Despite the many times I’d essentially done the same thing by casting spells, I found the experience strangely difficult. It was also tiring, and while I didn’t exactly get sore, per se, there was a sort of non-physical strain that I could feel.

Even with the strain, I would have continued my new training regimen, but sadly, magic wasn’t the only thing I had to learn: With the ball looming around the corner, I found myself spending more and more time with Markus. The following day, when I descended to our makeshift classroom — with my obfuscation chains, there was hardly a reason to have the lessons in my room — I was immediately greeted by the sight of nine, tiny figures of light laid out in front of Markus.

Are those little holograms? Are holograms a thing here? It struck me as kind of sci-fi, but then again, that which was hard for science was probably remarkably easy for light magic to do in this case.

“Hello! If you haven’t yet surmised, today’s lesson will focus on familiarizing you with the remainder of the ten chamber heads. Now, why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll begin, yes?”

“...in fact, tea was fairly rare within the city until it was popularized in noble circles by Chamber Head Victa, and it wasn’t until far more recently that it became popular for those of all social statures. You may be interested to note that your father’s predilection for the beverage stems from this fact — in many ways, he was reared to foster an inroads between the Chamber of the Commons and the Chamber of Nobility. And with that, we conclude our lesson on Mistress Victa. Any questions?”

With how long Markus had been lecturing, I would have normally said that my brain was well on its way to short circuiting. The truth was largely the opposite, however: Increased Intelligence coupled with God’s Mind made understanding and retaining the information child’s play.

I was even tempted to let my mind start wandering just to see how well I could understand everything even if I stopped paying attention. Of course, I didn’t, but I thought about it.

Interesting tidbit about Barb, though. Is that my fate too? Am I going to have a tutor on different types of tea until I’m fluent enough in tea-ology to eat little finger foods with nobles?

I considered posing the question to Markus — he had just asked for questions — but decided against it. Not that I was against doing a few tea tastings if I needed to, but I kind of doubted that was what Suds had in store for me.

I shook my head, and Markus moved on to the next figure in the line, a particularly stern-looking woman depicted with a longsword gripped in her hand.

“Next we have Mistress Goss, the Chamber Head of Peace. Now, there is quite a fair deal to say about both Goss and her chamber, but…”

Goss. The name felt familiar somehow, and I sifted through my memories until I found the connection. With how recent the memory was, it didn’t take long to find it.

“Sorry. Any relation to a guy named Warram’Goss?” Seemed like a long shot, honestly. For all I knew, “Goss” was like this city’s version of “Smith.”

Although, the guy did have an Epic class… and worked for the Chamber of Peace… Still, hopefully not though. Don’t think I left him with the best impression of m-

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Learning about the various scions of each house is a matter planned for tomorrow, but that would in fact be the youngest of the house, Mistress Goss’ son. Have you found a source from which to study on your own time?”

Ughhhh. How unlucky did I have to be to run into someone like that — Luck stat, where were you? Past that, what kind of “scion” got relegated to guard duty?

Then again, he probably needs it to level his class. Not like you can take a law enforcement class and not do any law enforcement. I winced.

“Um. He sort of kind of almost arrested me a few days ago. Not actually, though! Just almost!” I clarified.

Somehow, Markus didn’t appear entirely mollified by the clarification. “I see,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me… I’d like to see if Master Suds is available.” Without a further word, he exited the study, leaving me sitting there with only the holograms for company.

This isn’t going to get me in trouble is it? Even as I had the thought, it rang empty to my ears.

“You met the Goss kid.” Suds stormed into the room with Markus in tow, sparing no time for greetings. His words were posed more as a statement than a question, but I felt the need to answer nonetheless.

“Y- Yes? When I went out drinking. He was the guard that almost arrested me after the brawl.”

“Did you end up fighting him in any way? Punch him, stab him, cause him to bleed, even just a little bit?”

Thankfully not. Have no idea what Suds would say if he heard I’d fought the local guards and harmed some political big-wig. Happy to deliver at least some good news, I responded: “No. Not at all.”

“Damn!” Suds pounded his fist on the nearby table, causing me to practically jump out of my seat. In one swift motion, he swished his fist my direction, extending a single finger to emphatically point my way. “Next time, make sure to stab him a few times if you think you can get away with it, you hear me? Hate that kid.”

With that, he turned around and walked right out the door, holding his hand up in a manner of farewell, calling out as he left. “Only came down because I thought you’d have some good news for me. Carry on.”

What just… What? I made no attempt to hide my confusion as I watched him leave. For Markus’s part, I detected the faintest of frowns on his face.

“To be clear, I would very strongly advise that you do not stab the young maste-”

His words were fully drowned out by a shout from the room ahead. “And don’t listen to Markus! Definitely stab that little fucker if you can. Can’t legally advise you do any more than that, but look, if you end up showing up with a body you need to hid-”

Normally fairly unflappable, Markus started to choke. “A joke! That’s just a joke! Do not attempt murder, especially on the Goss family.”

My enhanced hearing managed to pick up some faint grumbling from Suds as he ascended the stairs back towards his office, but he offered no more words of homicidal encouragement.

Markus closed the door to the study, and we spent a second just staring at one another.

“So. Um. I’m kind of getting the sense we don’t like Warram?”

The rest of the session was spent as expected, delving deeper into the ins and outs of each of the chamber heads. Despite the unexpected interruption about Warram, Markus tried to spend as little time as possible dwelling on it — we had a lot of information to cover, and Warram wasn’t on the lesson plan for the day.

Despite myself, I found all the info fairly interesting. Diplomats, merchants, artisans, nobles, all with their own backstories and quirks. Some, powerful warriors, others, skilled only with barbed tongues and wit. They weren’t even all human, which surprised me no small amount: A single scaled lizard-like drakeling headed the Chamber of Diplomacy. Being deemed fairly low priority for me to know about, she wasn’t covered much, but it was still interesting to me.

The days after the lesson were similarly filled with a large amount of ball-related preparation. In a deranged sort of way, I was actually starting to look forward to the damn thing if for no other reason than that I’d have more time to myself afterwards.

Two highlights stuck out more than the others, although I wasn’t entirely sure if they were highlights or lowlights.

The first was that Suds had decided I needed to learn how to dance.

Though Markus had been assigned as my teacher in most subjects, in this case, I’d been handed off to an actual instructor. I wanted to protest, as I strongly doubted that a single lesson would do me much good, but my “grandfather” was adamant.

To his credit, reluctantly, I had to admit that the lesson did wonders: some combination of the teacher having a Dance Instructor class, coupled with the fact that my new stats made me far better of a dancer than I’d ever been. Perception apparently affected my proprioception more than I’d realized, Dexterity made each move fairly easy to pull off, and Intelligence made remembering the sequence of moves a cinch. That didn’t even account for the Dancing skill I picked up in the process, which made everything the smallest bit easier.

I hardly became a world-class dancer, but the steps for the main dance done at formal Sylum balls were actually fairly simple. At the very least, if I was forced to dance, I now gave myself even odds of making it through the affair without horribly embarrassing myself.

Then, at last, the day of the ball was upon us.

Leaving it to the very last minute, right before we left, I experienced the second highlight: The dress.

There was some backstory to it — apparently being a seamstress was one of the rarer jobs that could sometimes qualify as Chamber of the Commons and sometimes qualify as Chamber of Artisans, but a special point had been made to find someone in the Commons to purchase from. I was surprised that it was possible to purchase it without me visiting the seamstress in person, but when I asked how it could possibly fit me without going in to give my measurements, I received the obvious answer: Magic.

As was to be expected, the dress itself was something to behold, flowing down the floor in a draping gray pool. Keeping to what I inferred were the colors of the chamber, the gray was supplemented by an earth-brown trim around the neck and waist. It was neither overly conservative, nor overly revealing, but it was clear even to me that it cost more than any dress I’d worn back on Earth.

The main two takeaways related to the dress, however, weren’t actually about the dress itself.

The first was that I was perhaps a bit of a dumbass.

After Suds had given it to me and I’d slipped into it, I’d called out to the man out of frustration. “Where the hell is a mirror? I’m not supposed to go to some fancy ball without being able to even see myself, am I?”

A pause.

Then, a cackling laughter sounded out from behind the door to my room. “You- You’re- Ha! You know, it shouldn’t be that funny, but it is. You’ve really never used one of the mirror gems before?”

I froze. Mirror… gems? With a sudden realization, I rushed to the dresser, finding a small piece of yellow crystal inlaid into the side of it. My eyes had rolled past it countless times before, but armed with new information, I placed my hand on it and gave it a push.

A full, three-dimensional image of my body appeared in front of me.

Immediately, I let loose with a stream of obscenities. It was one thing to have missed the gem for a few weeks. With God’s Mind’s help, however, I took a trip down memory lane and confirmed that I’d seen similar gems inlaid to tables and sinks in most of the room’s I’d stayed in. I had wondered why mirrors weren’t more common, but I hadn’t even thought to ask.

It’s like the shower gem situation all over again. I thought back to the time Amak had basically let me know that I stank because I hadn’t realized my tent had gems that could be used as a shower.

I took in the sight of myself in the dress, and that was when the other big takeaway hit me. It was of course interesting to see the dress on me, but that paled in comparison to just seeing… me.

Hell, is that what I look like now?

It had been under half a year that I’d been on the planet now. I still had a pretty strong self image of myself as an average mid-twenties woman trying to pay rent. The woman in front of me was not that.

Unearned (or maybe partially earned?) muscles covered a body far leaner than I remembered it, likely caused by some mixture of stats and the large amounts of physical training and fighting I’d been doing.

It was my face that represented the biggest change though. My only serious experience with the effects of Charisma was when I’d seen Nadja cross the first threshold. Seeing some of those same effects on me, though, was surreal.

It was still me. Someone back on Earth would have still recognized me — of that, I had no doubt. And it wasn’t like I looked like I was wearing a face of makeup. It was just as if all the tiny imperfections — the things I’d gotten used to frowning at in the mirror over the years — had vanished. I saw my face, and it was really just how I’d always wanted it to look.

Bizarre. Coupled with the time Barb had shaved my head in the Drawgin dungeon and I’d drank a potion to regrow “wavy auburn hair,” enough had changed about me that I had to take a moment — several moments, honestly — just to collect myself.

Okay. Enough staring at yourself. I ran to the bathroom, finding a similar gem on the sink that projected an image of my head. Absentmindedly, I conjured up a ball of water to wash my face — despite the presence of the sink, I’d grown used to using my skill, if for no other reason than to level it.

And, wildly enough, level it I did.

Congratulations! Conjure Water has reached level 10.

Really? Now? I didn’t suppose there was time for me to sneak out and meet up with Archmage Callis before the ball, was there?

Ugh. Now I’m going to be thinking about getting a new cantrip the entire time. Well, whatever. It was still a good thing, overall. I kept reading.

Congratulations! You have reached the Initiate rank in Conjure Water!

Based on your spell usage, you have been granted a spell effect for achieving a new spell rank.

Conjure Liquid: Conjure Water can now be used to conjure one non-water liquid*. To assign the liquid in question, the caster must possess it. The liquid chosen can be changed up to once per day.

Neat! I spotted an asterisk after the word “liquid” and focused on it, and a deluge of information hit me about various restrictions. Nothing past Common rarity. Nothing super expensive. Nothing magical. Nothing that was under a certain percentage of water. Unfortunately, it looked like I wouldn’t be summoning liquid gold or healing potions all day, but I wasn’t too disappointed.

How did I end up getting this as a power though? I thought back to how I’d used Conjure Water and realized that, minus the times I’d used it to wash my face, I’d mostly used it for one purpose: Making hot chocolate.

“Realizing that maybe I should be more deliberate with how I use my skills.”

Well, whatever. If nothing else, it meant that if I nabbed a cup of hot chocolate, I could start conjuring it!

“Oh hell. Or wine. I could conjure wine.” I was torn horribly between using my skill for hot chocolate and using it for wine, wishing that I was allowed to have more than one liquid.

Maybe I’ll switch off each day. That’s reasonable, right?

Thoughts for another time. I rubbed the water into my face, only to accidentally splash a bit on my dress as a shout came from outside my room.

“Girl! You ready yet? We have to get a move on.”

And just like that, it was time to go.

As it turned out, fancy people on their way to balls held by nobles did not take the loop. Nor were their limousines to chauffeur us to our destination. Perhaps there was some sort of palanquin or teleport option for others, but Suds chose a simpler path: Flight.

He summoned up his gryphon and flew us into the inner city — District of Nobility. It felt excessive, and it was the only instance of flight I’d seen while in the city, but who was I to deny him? He grilled me on the way there.

“Now, remember. Try to avoid any of the Peace folks if you can — all dicks. All of them. Wealth folks too — less abrasive, but no point in alliances with ‘em: we’re on opposite ends of just about every vote. Make nice with Nobility if you can manage it, but that’s not your primary job. Focus on the Chamber of Adventure. Artisans can swing either way — looking down on you, or feeling solidarity because we’re in the same House. Play it by ear, and play nice, but don’t take any shit. And if you forget all that, just make sure not to blow your cover or do anything too embarrassing. You manage that, and I’ll consider tonight a win.”

No pressure or anything? I reassured him, while simultaneously reassuring myself. His words were nothing I hadn’t heard from both him and Markus several times over, but as the actual event neared, even with God’s Mind, I had the unreasonable feeling that I’d suddenly forget them.

Ultimately, though, the time for worrying was done. Eventually, we arrived at our destination, and after dismounting, I spent a moment staring at the venue, psyching myself up. The copper-coated road of the inner city led up to what could only be described as a palace. Considering it was the main house of the Chamber Head of Nobility — the closest thing the city had to a queen — that wasn’t far off, either.

Right when at last I was feeling ready, my moment of hard-won zen was shattered as a voice sounded out from behind me, ten times louder than it needed to be.

“Hey! You! I know you! Perceptive Pickaxe girl!”

Stat & Level Updates:

Conjure Water 9 → 10 Etiquette 4 → 5 Dancing 0 → 2

Character Sheet:

Name: Tess

Age: 26

Race: Human

Class: Arcane Arsenal

Level: 10

Prestige: 1222

Health: 300/300

Mana: 325/325

Stamina: 240/240

Constitution: 26

Strength: 24

Endurance: 24

Dexterity: 19 (+1)

Intelligence: 30

Wisdom: 26 (+2)

Perception: 28

Charisma: 20

Luck: 27

Skills:

Skills

Weapon & Armor

Archery: 10

Spears: 9

Medium Armor: 5

Small Blades: 4

Swords: 3

Hammers: 2

Staffs: 2

Unarmed Combat: 2

Axes: 2

Heavy Armor: 1

Movement

Dodge: 3

Magic

Life Magic: 6

Water Magic: 7

Fire Magic: 7

Light Magic: 6

Mental Magic: 1

Ritual Magic: 1

Demonic Summoning: 1

Spells

Conjure Water: 8

Minor Healing: 7

Flameploof: 8

Illumination: 7

Sense Minds: 1

Resistances

Trauma Suppression: 13

Mental Resistance: 7

Poison Resistance: 6

Bleed Resistance: 4

Heat Resistance: 2

Pain Resistance: 2

Detection

God's Eye: 7

Detect Trap: 6

Detect Secret: 4

Craft

Construction: 6

Woodworking: 7

Jewelry Making: 5

Alchemy: 1

Social

Conversation: 5

Etiquette: 4

Trade: 3

Flirt: 2

Deception: 1

General

Drinking: 4 (+5)

Gambling: 1

Reading: 1

Class Skills

Weaponmaster

Bind Weapon: 1/5

Arcane Armament: 2/5

Overload Weapon: 1/5

Armorist

Bind Armor: 1/5

Arcane Armory: 5/5

Resist Magic: 2/5

Augmenter

Mana Feet: 1/1

Arcane Vision: 1/1