Beth had done it. She’d made it through all 10 Trials full marks, 10/10. All it cost was her every iota of energy. She’d been gone for only half a week, the shortest Trial she’d taken in a while, yet it felt like in each Trial she had left a little piece of herself behind. Like an onion being peeling over an over.

Removing her token from the square she went home and fell into bed. Nearly 18 full hours later the next morning she awoke, pulled off a blanket she hadn’t remembered putting on herself went about making some tea. Filling two cups with boiling water she stirred while she waited for her mother to emerge from her sleeping quarters. Unlike Beth Susanna was looking organised and neat. As though she could walk straight out the door if the situation demanded. On the other hand Beth was looking as though for all intents and purposes that she had just been dragged through a pile of hay. The tea hit a spot that Beth couldn’t describe. She’d drank some while away, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff from home. The two Oakfenny women stood there in silence drinking and enjoying their hot drinks basking silently in each others company for a while. They also discussed their plans for the day, Beth had no real obligations and so was planning to continue to play with her magic, something she proudly showed off to her mother causing quite the sidetrack and Suzanne displayed a childlike wonder Beth had never seen. Unfortunately, Susanna had obligations within the church so was heading over there more or less as soon as she finished her tea. She’d get breakfast there. Having finished her tea Beth departed and headed to Pete’s to knock once more on his door. Once against there was no sign of him so she headed to the woods to practise her magic. As she headed over she pulled up her new skill window.

Mental Fortitude (rare): Level 2 (10 Trials complete)

Becoming more familiar with the feeling of somebody attempting to influence your mind you are also better at blocking it.

You are 10% harder to influence into doing something you would not normally do and are 5% more likely to notice somebody attempting to influence you

Already this skill put Beth’s mind at ease a lot. Obviously she didn’t yet have a perfect defence. Nor would she be content unless she got it at least a couple more levels higher. However she was at least glad to have gotten the ball rolling on those changes.

Once there she also made plans for the next skills she wanted to work on and the order. Most excitedly she would be able to push Trial Taking to Level 2 hopefully unlocking more features for it. She dreamed big about all the secrets she would unlock but when being honest with herself, it was only level 2 and she doubted it would actually have that great of an affect. She resolved to take it in a couple of days, giving her a chance to spend some time at home first before vanishing again. Not that the Trial Taking skill took that long, but it was hard to find an excuse if she vanished for long periods of time. After all her mum knew she was back so wouldn’t understand if she then vanished for several days without warning.

Sure enough two days later she completed the relevant Trial without too much trouble and couldn’t stop herself from smirking when she saw the changes.

Trial Taking (ultra-rare): Level 2 (10 Trials Credits)

Having spent time evaluating others’ performance you are now able to summon Trials on your own.

At this level you may summon two Trials, for a skill you have already unlocked. The same skill cannot be chosen more than once per Trial Cycle. This skill may also not level higher than your highest skill level. This will cost three Trial Credits to activate. Alternatively you can summon a single Trial for two credits.

This was an exciting trajectory for the Skill and Beth was equally excited about the new opportunities it presented and the future opportunities it would result in. What it hadn't addressed though, not that Beth was ungrateful, was the loss of Credits she would be enduring, something that didn’t seem to be leaving, at least not any time soon. She pulled up her total 114 It wasn’t enough. It might have seemed like a lot in the moment but Beth knew she’d burn through it rather fast. She needed more. Fortunately she knew how to get more; trick people who didn’t know any better to give them away. She immediately began to scheme how to do such a thing. Se wasn’t willing to take advantage of the people of Leeds, after all they had accepted her and her mother with open arms. Plus they all knew the value of them and wouldn’t give them up. Similarly she wasn’t welcome back in Livpul, if anything going back to Newcastle was clearly the best approach. But she’d ned to make some changes before she did. That evening she explained her plan to her mother expecting some pushback but she was fully on board, even without hearing the true explanation of why she needed the Credits. It turned out the town had passed around a large number of Credits to unlock everybody’s shop as not everything required a lot of Credits, seemingly it had been Pete’s idea and Beth was shocked she hadn’t thought of it before.

Susanna wasn’t the biggest fan of tricking people into giving up their Credits but that city had kept her in prison for a not inconsiderable amount of time so her sympathy was minimal and she didn’t offer more than a token resistance to idea of taking advantage.

Having agreed the plan with her mother she didn’t actually have any reason to hang around, no responsibilities no expectations. It actually worried Beth a little how easy it was to leave. Maybe easy wasn’t the right word but she couldn’t label the feeling any better. She slipped a note through Pete's door explaining the situation and set off. She planned to return in about two weeks, giving her about a week in Newcastle itself with the rest of the time dedicated to travelling.

Twenty-four hours later she found herself in the outskirts of Newcastle more than a little shocked. She’d really not considered just how convenient her skill was and had crossed the huge distance without particularly tiring. She’d quickly taken herself off the roads when she almost crashed into a cart and didn’t quite know how to explain herself. Instead she went through the surrounding woods enjoying the familiarity and the speeds she could reach. She contemplated attempting to run over the top as she had on Hepterel but she was aware these leaves were much more fragile and didn’t want to embarrass herself failing.

Newcastle was more or less jut how she’d left it. Well not quite, on the surface level it was the same but it had a significant number more quirks than it had previously. For one everybody was a higher level. There were numerous people of level 4, As Beth had her way through, aiming for the same inn she had stayed in previously she saw a single person who had also hit level 5. Theoretically People of almost double her level could exist within the world. After all many months had passed. That was unlikely though given how long some took but was technically a possibility. Beth remained confident she was one of the highest levelled in England if not further afield. She had money this time too meaning she could focus entirely on collecting Credits. She managed to quickly convince the inn keeper of the same deal they had last time and seeing no time like the present headed out to convince other strangers to give her the Credits. It felt ironic that she had ignored the busking skill previously when she was sure it would have been helpful even at level one, if only she had given it a little work. She also didn’t have Pete with her, somebody who previously had been quite the draw and had actual skill to create things to sell. What she did have though were physical abilities. She’d now spent moths training and otherwise living a high intensity lifestyle and hadn’t been all that well fed during that time. The issue being obviously that everybody had an innate level of fitness, but hopefully not one backed up with the training she received. With a little bit of elbow grease and spending more than she intended on supplies she had her set up ready.

A five Credit game to first strike with a weapon of their choice. She had a variety of weapons in a variety of sizes that she’d bought and oblivious her person treasure from Stilwart. There was no doubt she would be relying on her half-staff for the whole game. She hoped her image as a young girl helped covey how easy it would be to beat her at the competition. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything she could do about the level above her head. She could only hope people would assume it was not in combat, which to be fair it wasn’t. From the lewd comments she received setting everything up she imagined that many thought her title and level were related. Something she wasn’t going to dissuade them of at that time. In general she got less willing customers here than she and Pete had done last time they ran the similar con. However, that wasn’t to say there were no customers and even those who knew they had some value were still willing to risk their Credits in what they thought was an easy win. Something fairly comedic given their lack of training themselves. She still occasionally lost though. Sometimes on purpose occasionally to a truly competent foe but if anything that only helped her bottom line as people saw she was beatable and those who failed wanted to try again as they now knew what to suspect, or at least thought they did. She also wasn’t sharing these with Pete which naturally made the number increase faster. She even got a constant work out from it so really it was win win.

She did have to take regular breaks to explore her other skills. She decided to take advantage of her income while she had it and took on the next pair of Trials in everything. After all if she passed the cost was the same no matter how many she took. Eventually her self imposed two week holiday was reached and she headed home. Her pockets metaphorically heavier. She pulled up her total again gleams in her eyes. She’d made a killing, 500 Credits all in all. Some people had gone double or nothing twice causing a real windfall when a group of slightly drunk men all individually challenged her until they were broke. The jeering of their friends being better marketing than Beth could have even attempted to muster. She passively made plans to return with Pete asap. The pair could easily wring the city dry of Credits and make off like bandits. Something that had a very definitive timeline on it. The more people who hit that 100 Credit requirement and discussed the shop the most people who would know about it and wouldn’t be willing to waste the Credits so casually.

She had still resisted looking into the shop, something that required a herculean effort on her part She was sure he would be back when she returned though. He had to be.