She held the pen poised and ready to sign waiting for a drastic event to save her from this contract. But it didn’t come, nobody came to protect her from the big scary contract. Yet another reminder that she was here alone.

As such she continued and signed her name and felt a sudden dramatic shift in her mana. It was like it was being yanked upwards through the path it entered expelling from her mouth and landing on the point of her signature. Well not quite landing more like it had been pulled a hand reaching inside her from the contract. It almost emptied her out completely. The doctor smirked again a small grin overtaking his face for a second before vanishing as he schooled his face back into an expression of neutrality.

He ushered her into the back where there was a long bed bench hybrid. He got her to lie down on the uncomfortable padding, removing her trousers first. Then he pulled a stretchy material pipe that resembled one of Harri’s tights, though significantly less vibrantly coloured. This was cut to size on Beth’s leg. He then wrapped it in a warm padding applying it particularly thickly acorss the bottom of her foot. He then slathered with a concoction Beth felt resembled porridge that had been let go dangerously bad. He applied this directly to the leg, propping it up slightly so it could get around the full leg. Once a generous coating had been applied to the padding leaving small gaps at the top and bottom. This was then wrapped once more in a thin binding material to hold the mixture against the leg.

The cast still appeared wet to the touch when the doctor lay his hand atop it. From that point Beth could feel the cast contracting shifting her leg causing her to cry out loudly in pain. The cast was drying rapidly, doing in mere seconds what she imagined should have taken hours. Within 30 seconds the shifting had stopped and Beth was left with a bone dry cast and hopefully her leg was in position to heal properly. Though Beth had no way to confirm that aspect.

Despite being dry it had a gleam to it as though it were a metal surface that had been ever so slightly polished. Fortunately for Beth the break was in the lower leg meaning the cast didn’t come above her knees allowing her the range of motion to still kick her foot. Not that she was going to kick anything anytime soon, she’d sure learned that lesson. The doctor seemed rather content with the cast he’d made and set about cleaning up after himself.

Beth lay there in silence for several minutes without interacting with the doctor before piping up.

“So is there anything else you need me for?”

“Nope” the doctor said cheerily. “The cast is waterproof, but I wouldn’t take advantage of that as it’s only got so much magic in it. Beyond that you can come any time to make payments, somebody is always in. I’ll want to scan it in 3 months to make sure everything is okay and with any luck I can remove the cast after 6 or 7 months.

Those numbers suck in for Beth. That was quite awhile. A long while. She couldn’t track Pete again until the next month anyway but even then she doubted he would be anywhere nearby. The cast wasn’t enough to allow her to easily travel, so she couldn’t give chase. Plus she’d need to deal with this cast in all her future Trials. It wasn’t like she was put in some other state when Trials started. Injuries persisted between Trials. At least the Trial was obviously skill crafted so it wouldn’t remove itself during the Trial.

Beth saw herself out while the Doctor continued to flit about cleaning. She continued to avoid putting weight on her leg where she could but there was no longer a large shooting pain whenever she attempted to move it. The constant pain being dealt with allowed her to focus on other things like how truly hungry she was. She hadn’t eaten since the day before and even then it had been a late morning meal.

Fortunately she could very easily identity the local inn and began to make her way over, still keeping most of her weight on her staff, feeling glad it was well made and wouldn’t buckle under her weight. She once again had to use her full weight behind the door using it to press the door open. The inside had the loud rambunctiousness Beth expected and she quickly resolved to stay out the way as much as possible while within. After all everybody here was clearly significantly stronger than her and could wipe her out if they so desired. Yes she resolved, she just needed to get some food and get out again without attracting any attention.

Beth noticed the overtones of speech had slowly petered out. Replaced by furtive whispers; whispers aimed in Beth’s direction. She wanted to take confident steps up to the bar and act as though the chatting didn’t effect her but that proved tricky while relying on a walking stick and actually being extremely effected by everybody staring at her.

A waitress quickly made to approach her, even she was sitting at a high level 21.

“Hi honey, I’m so sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You aren’t a high enough level for this place.” The women said in a sickeningly sweet voice.

“Our clientele like to discuss their adventures and they can’t do that if sections of their stories are banned by the system due to low levels being around.”

Well Beth hadn’t been expecting that. Was it discrimination? She had to admit the explanation was more than valid and she hated to be any bother to these people, she also knew if she didn’t eat soon she might collapse. Well maybe that wasn’t entirely true but she was just so so tired, she’d had an overwhelming 24 hours, she was in crippling debt, something she hadn’t even slightly internalised and the mission she had come to complete was clearly way way too much for her to handle. She once more found herself crying. Silently but crying none the less. The barmaid saw it and immediately ran up and wrapped Beth in an extremely gentle hug.

“Come through to the back, I’ll get you a little food there and you can tell me your story. Come on honey.”

Beth only had it in her to nod dejectedly as she was guided past the staring patrons into a back room. There the volume increased behind her but due to the closed door she could only hear the most muted of general noise, nothing approaching words which clearly was enough for the system. Beth found herself among bags of vegetables once more and was ushered to a crate to sit on. The barmaid then disappeared momentarily before returning with an extremely large bowl of stew.

“Free of charge!” The barmaid said with a wink. Beth gave her an uneasy smile back and began to eat. It was delicious. Incredibly so. It tasted better than anything she’d had before and she devoured it rapidly. Going so far as to lick the bowl clean, leaving decorum behind. Decorum was for those who weren’t starving, who weren’t eating food sent straight from perfection. The barmaid returned at one point and smiled seeing Beth had finished the stew. She offered Beth a couple of bread buns which she quickly devoured too. After that point Beth just sat, expecting the barmaid to return shortly. But instead she waited, and waited and waited.

Hours passed while Beth inspected her surroundings and took stock of her life. This was the first moment she had to really come to terms with her last several hours. She was full and relatively warm and other than a scary debt hanging over her head she was safe. Safe and utterly useless.

Useless, useless, useless, that was the thought that kept bouncing around her head. She had been so so cocky coming here. No real research, no planning or training just her level 5 self ad a weapon she wasn’t even level 5 in. She had spent so much time with people who had a lower level or no level at all that she had convinced herself she was competent and could face the world. But the world was full of enemies she couldn’t face. Hell she owed her life to Nate, who had saved her life several times.

Nate and Pauline, they were two people she had staunchly avoided thinking about. She had been so selfish, Pauline was traumatised possibly forever and she had abandoned them for what? Personal power? She didn’t even know at that point that Pete was missing. Even if she wasn’t happy she didn’t need to leave them alone on the mountains. They had been right, she was selfish and had never respected the Ritual they were taking part in. Now she had a title that would forever label her for that.

She’d been a bad friend to Pete too, she hadn’t searched him out after seeing Steven, she hadn’t invited him along. She’d barely thought about him in the months they were apart and she had come so close to abandoning him much like the rest of their home had done. She’d been so scared by how powerless she had been before the system she had turned her back on every aspect of life from before then. Disrespecting Steven’s choices, and she knew she’d judged her mum for hiding within the church community even if she had never vocalised the thought. It’s amazing the clarity that is provided to you when you are left alone, with only a reminder of your failure and have to come to terms with who you have become. Somebody that Beth had never wanted to become. Even how she thought of herself she had fought so so aggressively against the name Bethany, telling off anybody who referred to her as such just because she associated it with her weakness. But in this moment Beth was weaker than Bethany had ever been. Her best skill couldn’t be used, her combat experience was useless and she was utterly poor and in debt.

Name

Bethany Oakfenny

Title(s)

Solarslut, Flawed Honorary Sister

Mana Type

Cosmic (rare) 1

Level

5

Trial Credits

470

Skills:

Traversal (uncommon)

5 (25 Trial Credits)

Trial Taking (ultra-rare)

2 (10 Trial Credits)

Mental Fortitude (rare)

2 (10 Trial Credits)

Social Tracking (uncommon)

1 (9 Trial Credits)

Half-staff (common)

1 (8 Trial Credits)

Communication (common)

1 (6 Trial Credits)

Bartering (common)

0 (3 Trial Credits)

Busking (common)

0 (1 Trial Credit)

This was all she came to and when she discounted the skills that were more or less useless at the moment she realised how little she had achieved and how much further she had to go. But to get there she knew she had to make a change. Not straight back to the person she had once been, but certainly not staying in the middle. Somebody knew Not Beth or Bethany but Bethan.

Beth shuddered, Bethan, now that was a name she truly hated. Beth or Bethany she would happily go by interchangeably but never Bethan. Never.

Beth gave herself a sombre smile, there had been so much of herself that she had just pretended didn’t exist and tried to hide from and she was more than a little relieved to acknowledge it was part of her and wouldn’t go away. Now she just had to work out how to survive this place and more than just survive, find Pete and convince him to come home. She’d already found herself here in Wittadon how hard could finding Pete be?