Riloth the 19th the 41st

After my late night chat with Levar, I woke and walked through the usual routine. Once back at his shop, I asked him to brew up some concentrated acid slime and as much brimstone acid as he could and he told me to come back in six hours.

Speaking to him as a near stranger had felt wrong. In these resets, it was becoming ever easier to think of people as—I know this sounds terrible, but—objects. I interact with them transactionally, and each interaction is identical to the one before. With Gerald and the knight—whose name I still don’t know—I had to think of them as something other than fully human to get through those days of failures.

With Levar, it had always been a little different. Each interaction with him tended to be fairly unique, and I thought we could even be friends if given the chance. The man was a font of knowledge, and it wasn’t hard to get him to talk about something new. But, no matter the topic, the conversations still felt a little hollow. He’d repeat the same anecdotes and ask the same questions about my own adventures, and a simple comment from him would bring the reality of the situation crashing down on my head. When that occurred, I would make an excuse and move on with my tasks and try to think of him as no different from anyone else I interacted with on a daily basis.

After last night, I couldn’t pretend anymore. Levar was my friend, or at least, I was his friend—even if he thought me a stranger. Seeing him speak to me as he would any random customer hurt more than I expected. One of the many reasons I’d never enlisted the aid of my companions was the thought of seeing them as less than people, as I had begun to with everyone else.

Seeing the lack of recognition on Levar’s face hurt as much as one of Timothy’s crushing blows—no, that's being dramatic, those hurt far, far worse. It was as if the man I'd briefly come to know had died in the night and been replaced with an imposter. I resolved to keep my future interactions brief and set off to go shopping to kill time while he prepared the acid.

My previous today's experiments had shown I was thinking too narrow-mindedly. I saw a problem and tried to figure out how my magic could solve it. When you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. When you can light things on fire with a thought, you start to look for ways to burn your problems away. But when you find an object that isn’t flammable, you need to start looking for new tools.

Now that I think of it, a magic hammer would probably work really well.

On my walk back to town the night before, I’d come to a conclusion. My frantic urgency was counterproductive. If I did in fact have a limited amount of time before our bond broke, rushing to my death each today as quickly as possible was wasting it. From the rate of decay my bodies displayed in the pocket realm, and from the possibility that someone else may be in these resets with me, I found it highly probable that the reset was not timed to my death. Any moment I'm dead before the reset is a moment wasted I could have put to better use. Though my time seems unlimited, relative to other factors I was wasting it dying early.

But first, I needed to finish my preparations for my attempt on the door. My next stop brought me back to Hilroy’s smithy, following my ears towards the rhythmic pinging. At his shop, I purchased the crossbow I’d used to great effect against one of the ogres. I paid the asking price without complaint.

On the way out, upon seeing his wife—a very small and petite woman—I turned to him and, mustering my best impression of a man who just got swindled, shouted "For a price that outrageous I demand information! Where can I find a tutor for the rapier in this podunk armpit of a town!?"

Still smiling, Hilroy replied, "Hmmm, I know just the person, though she may turn you away. Ren Griffin’s Bane retired here not too long ago. She’s been quite the nuisance. No idea why she retired here, but I think she’s been bored and she might enjoy the diversion. She lives in the gaudy town house down the road with the minotaur out front. You can't miss it."

I thanked Hilroy and set off to arrange for transportation of the crossbow and acid. At the Parlor, I asked Simon to do just that and send for a horse and cart to collect my new purchases at the prearranged times. I also put in a request for dinner, this time restricting it to the letter "G." After all the logistics were settled, I sat in Parlor's dining room to eat the same grilled beef sandwich I'd eaten a dozen times. It wasn't a bad meal, but I'd be sick of anything if I had it a dozen times in a row. That day I even enjoyed it, it had been a while since I'd eaten in the Parlor’s dining hall for lunch.

After my meal, I retrieved my sword from my room and went off to find this “Ren Griffin's Bane.” The name was not one I'd heard, but few adventurers gained renown outside regional fame unless they capture the attention of the bards.

The house was not hard to miss once you started looking for the giant stone minotaur. I’d passed it previously and noted it, but had never given it more than a passing thought. The building itself was a modest, but well-maintained, townhouse in the wealthy district of town. The stone behemoth sat in the center of the front yard, obscuring the view of the house from the street. It stood with one arm lifted high above its head, as if raising a glass for a toast. The other arm had broken off at the elbow. The head was that of an enormous bull, horns spanning almost six feet, and was staring up menacingly at the raised hand. The torso was that of a giant man, and the legs were that of a goat, each cloven hoof dwarfing even the hooves of Roland's giant goat friend.

Walking past the out-of-place statue, I climbed the steps and knocked on the ornately carved door. I studied the silver masquerade mask affixed there, while waiting for someone to answer. The symbol was small, the size of my fist, and represented Tin Lan, the god of mischief and entertainment. His followers have adopted a masquerade mask as the sign of their worship—if their antics could be called worship.

He was one of the last gods to ascend in the Age of Heroes. In life, Tin Lan was a wandering bard, playwright, actor, musician, and—most notably—prankster. Unlike most demigods, who ascended through leadership and renown, it is said that he ascended while running through a crowd from the royal guard and the king himself. The legend goes that Tin Lan had hidden away the king’s bride-to-be on the morning of their wedding and took her place in disguise. He maintained the disguise the whole day of celebration and through the wedding itself, only to reveal himself when the veil was lifted at the ceremony’s end. At which point, he gave the king a vigorous kiss and ran away, screaming "Long live the queen!" It is debated whether Tin Lan was actually the Queen by marriage in the minutes before his ascension, but his followers still refer to him as The Queen of Mischief.

I stood there recalling this while waiting and grew impatient. Moving to knock once more, I heard a rhythmic tap clack, tap clack, steadily growing louder. The door opened to reveal an older, but still beautiful, woman a little shorter than my own six feet, but she herself had only one. Foot that is. She had a peg leg. Her hair had gone entirely gray, and was cut short to just below her neck; just long enough to tie back.

She looked me over with a practiced eye, her hand casually going to the rapier at her side.

"Good evening young sir, how may I be of service?" she asked in a friendly tone, as if she wasn’t prepared to skewer me if I made the wrong move.

“Hello, my name is Tal,” I said, “and I am looking for someone to train me in the rapier; I was told you might be able to."

I had decided to stop lying about my name. My mother taught me to keep my identity secret while traveling openly as a wizard, but I’d now died over forty times, and it was rather low on my list of important things.

Her expression changed from curiosity to shock, "You heard I might be able to help you? Might? Do you know who I am?"

"You are Ren Griffin’s Bane, right?" I asked, uncertain.

Were there two minotaur statues and I picked the wrong one?

"Yes, you know my name, but do you know who I am?" Seeing my confused look she continued, "I slew the Gorgan’s Minotaur, rid the griffins from Rockside, won the Tournament of Duels five years in a row, and I did half of that before I was made the Chosen of Tin Lan. None of that even touches on my career as an entertainer. So the question is not if I am able to help you, but whether I am willing to."

Surprised by the sudden change in her demeanor, I struggled for words, "I, uh, well, that is, that is what I meant." I took a breath to gather myself and continued, "I was told you were a master in the rapier and that I might be able to convince you to provide me an evening of tutelage."

A smile spread across her face and she said, "That's better, maybe if you stumble on your words less, a lesser woman might have believed that recovery. I’m simply giving you a hard time. Time seems to be all I have these days. Aside from wealth, talent, wisdom, decades of experience, and most importantly unparalleled beauty and the Blessings of a god."

She gestured for me to enter, and I followed her in.

The minotaur outside set expectations of the interior that were not met. The furnishings were nothing extravagant, well-made furniture that was expensive without being ostentatious or gaudy. The walls were a different matter. They were covered with dozens of odd items, which I took to be trophies of her travels. The largest of which was a three-foot section of a stone arm mounted above the mantle.

She led me through the house, walking with a surprising grace with only one leg. The interior was furnished with bars in every room, a small room, and many other signs she regularly entertained large groups. A cloak room stood just inside the entry, equipped with a window for an attendant and everything. We stepped out into a backyard that had once been a garden but had been converted into a training yard. The walled area had a sandpit in the center, and the walls themselves were lined with targets of various sizes and practice dummies.

We walked to the center of the sand pick and Ren drew her sword.

"So, why are you seeking out my boundless wisdom?" she asked.

Before I could answer, she gestured to the sword at my hip and said, "Draw it. Talk and fight. Learning to multitask is step one. I need to see what you know before I can decide what you must learn."

While drawing my sword in my right hand, I answered, "I seem to keep—" she knocked the sword from my grip, and with a needlessly showy display, caught it with her own, twirled it around her own rapier and plucked it from the air with her free hand "—finding myself in fights in over my head," I finished, standing there defeated, though not having flinched from the sudden attack.

She looked me up and down once more and said, "Hmmm, I can see that. But your instincts are good. You didn't panic when you lost your weapon. Let's try that again."

What followed was an hour of her regaling me of her past exploits while repeatedly disarming me, accompanied by intermittent advice on form and movements. By the end of that time, I was at least able to prevent her from flourishing when she stole my weapon.

"Why do you keep doing that?" she asked, making a hand gesture I often make when casting Mage Armor in a hurry. I don't need hand gestures to cast—outside of aiming—but I tend to do them anyway when I'm not focusing. I must have been flinching when her hits were getting close to home.

I asked, "Doing what?" playing dumb.

"Oh, never mind. Again," she commanded, and we continued.

A few minutes later, after I successfully parried a slash, she sprung back, summoned a Firebolt, and shot it at my face. Reacting on instinct, I cast Mage Armor to try to deflect the bolt of flame before it made contact. The Firebolt passed through my barrier unimpeded and continued straight through my head and out the other side, where it faded out of existence.

Before my mind could register it had been an illusion and not a true Firebolt, Ren spoke, "Ha, I thought so. Your accent is strange, but I detected a hint of ship clan in it. That and the instinctive gestures gave you away. I haven’t seen a Stormcaller in some time. Why the disguise? I could have been training you far more efficiently had I known."

I had a strange accent, or so I had been told. My father’s accent was one I’d never heard from a mouth other than his, my mother’s was the culturally diverse mess of a dialect the ship clans used, and mine was some abomination of the two seasoned with the accents of our travels. That fact she could pick up ship clan from my speech spoke more to her worldliness than her boasts did. Luckily for me, she came to the wrong conclusion.

Going along with her false assumption, I said, "Yeah, what of it? I did not think it relevant for training in the rapier."

She laughed in my face.

"You didn’t think being able to shoot fire from your hands and deflect sword blows with your mind would be relevant to your combat training?" she asked.

"I... uh, I guess when you put it that way it seems quite silly. Yes, I am a journeyman Stormcaller," I answered, avoiding eye contact.

"Well then, we are going to need to start all over. First things first, you need to learn to fight left-handed, since you are clearly right-handed, and I assume you use that hand for your spells. Eventually you will want to learn to use both, but for now I expect your combat prowess lies primarily in your magics, so we will want to keep your casting hand free. Show me what you can do."

She explained this all as if she had trained dozens of mages in the sword. Maybe she had.

What followed was me demonstrating my repertoire of spells and then more sparring, this time left-handed. While she effortlessly batted away my attacks, she now supplemented her critiques with general advice on mixing magic into one's swordsmanship. She demonstrated this by blinding me with a burst of colorful light from her palm and taking advantage of my disorientation to trip me. Not that she couldn't have done that without the light.

The light trick, she explained, worked best against subterranean or nocturnal creatures, but also worked great on any unexpecting mark. She seemed to think my greatest assets as a budding swordsman would be Lightning Bolt, Mage Armor, Blink, and Gust.

After practicing with the Glow cantrip for an hour she told me that Lightning Bolt could be used in a similar fashion, to greater effect. She elected not to practice that. She also said “Lightning Bolt” in a slightly derisive fashion, seemingly amused by the name, but I couldn’t place why at the time.

Other general advice she gave was to use Blink to appear behind opponents. I couldn't yet change my orientation when Blinking, but my success with modifying Slow Fall gave me hope I could tweak that aspect of Blink. Lastly, she advised to never practice with Mage Armor, but to always activate it when in combat.

She said, "It’s not like regular armor, which you must train in to grow accustomed to. It's best to live your life like you don’t have it, and then live longer because you do. A little Will saved from a well practiced parry instead of letting your Armor deflect it could be the difference between life or death later on."

I left her home exhausted from the physical exertion. It had been some time since I’d been this tired and lived to experience it.

As I walked out, Ren called out, "Thanks for the distraction, if you ever pass through Crossroads again, swing by, and we can swap adventuring stories. That is, if you ever get any of your own."

That elicited a genuine laugh, and I shouted back, "Ha, I’m sure I’ll be back. Thank you for all the advice. I think I might have a tale or two of my own some day. See you soon!"

It took a significant amount of will to not go straight to the baths. Now that I didn’t have you, I was less afraid I’d draw Tilavo’s attention, but I was still wary of seeing him. Silver linings on a storm cloud of whale excrement.

At the Parlor, Simon was waiting with a cart harnessed to Knotien. Loaded in the back were my crossbow, five bolts, two gallons of a faintly yellow liquid in glass containers, and a small wooden box which I presumed to contain the acid slime concentrate. The sun was starting to set as we left town, so we traveled by Light. Ravenous from the extended labor of training, I devoured my "G" meal. It consisted of a block of goat cheese, roasted goat, grapes, and ginger bread cake for dessert. Half points for doubling down on goat.

By the time I reached the dead tree it was fully dark.