I did, in fact gain three points during my day working in the Jerk's territory, but even so I wasn't sure it was worth it. During the course of the day I had fallen into a concealed pit with a giant trampoline at the bottom, been attacked by flying sentient books, had coleslaw fired at me out of a cannon, and been chased by an army of possum controlled by an old woman with an enchanted flute. By the time the day ended, I was glaring non stop at Cap, who looked pretty sheepish about the whole thing.

He sighed as he noted my gaze wasn't abating. "Ok, so I MIGHT have forgotten how bad it gets here. But in my defense, all the weirdness is a side effect. The Jerks have such a reputation for being strange that recursion pushes them to do crazy stuff, which gets them more renown for how weird they are which pushes them to be strange. Most of them aren't too bright in the first place so you end up with an entire gang of weirdos, most of whom are harmless and strange, but a very few of whom are legitimately dangerous."

That...actually described the Jerks pretty well. I sighed. "Yeah, fine. I get it. I just NEVER want to experience a day like that again. Even if it was weirdly helpful for getting stronger. Getting sucked into their pace gave me a solid boost points wise." I exhaled loudly. "Alright boss, let's hit the guild hall. I have something I want to give Jessie." He chuckled and pulled out, heading for our workplace, and as he did I went over my gains for today.

Wishmaster candidate status. H-rank. Ability: Lesser Wish- Four times a day grant a Lesser wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with current statistics. Might 6 Impact 2 Fantasy 5 Vitality 5 Focus 5 Perception 4 Creation 5 Skills: Lesser Doom Sovereign Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Cooking Mastery, Minor Gymnastics Mastery, Minor Swimming Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor Singing Mastery, Minor Enchanting Mastery, Minor Inventing Mastery

Of course I'd only managed the entry level of even the Minor tier of the skill, I had insane amounts of research to do if I wanted to catch up, but while most of the mental stats were harder to pin down, peak human athletes and scholars were mostly as close as a mortal can get to one point of Focus, Might, Perception, or Vitality.

Physical and Mental stats were pretty much clocked at whatever the stat was multiplied by peak human. Creation and Fantasy, the Ethereal stats were pretty much impossible to compare to a normal person. The point was that I was about five times better at remembering information and processing it than a normal person even right now, which would make studying easier.

A point each in Perception, Might, and Vitality were nice, but the biggest benefit I had today was an epiphany when I saw one of the jerks pull out some ludicrous bubble gun made out of copper pipe. When I saw what it could do the lesson Benny gave me and all the reading I'd been doing in Inventing since then just...clicked into place. I'd gotten the skill, which meant I could have people teach me skills they wished for, even if I couldn't tell them to wish for them to begin with.

My thoughts were cut off as we arrived at the guild and I climbed out. I'd expected to stop in today so I'd brought Jessie's wand with me, and I was pretty excited to see how much she was going to like it. The enchantments weren't anything big for someone higher ranked but for me they were definitely a real challenge, and it felt good to make something for a friend with my own hands. I was planning to make Benny something too, but I wanted to wait until I got him an Ability because I could make something that complimented him better and because I'd be able to make him a better item.

I said my goodbyes to Cap and wandered into the guild building, heading upstairs to where I knew Jessie was staying. The guild kept on site apartments for members visiting out of town, and because of what happened to Verdant Jessie had been invited to stay here, since she had lived alone with her brother. Tracking down the apartments wasn't tough, and when I got there I found Jessie's room easily. There weren't many of the small living spaces, and even fewer of them were occupied. I found the right door by the sign she'd hung outside and rapped on the wood a few times, waiting for her to open it.

The door did open, but the person on the other side wasn't Jessie. It was a tall athletic blonde woman with bright blue eyes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she had a kind, upbeat sort of look to her, and when she saw me she broke into a grin, calling over her shoulder. "Hey Jessie, that friend you always talk about is here." I'd removed my mask since I was on guild property so she called me by name when she reached out to shake my hand. "Shane right? I'm Lindsey, it's nice to meet you. Jessie won't shut up about you and her other new friends."

The smaller girl body checked her lightly out of the way, glaring up at her older friend. "Ignore Lindsey. All the electricity she handles has clearly fried her brain." The other woman stuck her tongue out at the smaller blonde, who rolled her eyes, trying her best to hide a smirk. Turning away from the girl, who must be Sparkdove, the friend of her brother's she'd mentioned she gave me a happy smile. "I wasn't expecting you today, please come in, excuse the mess, I'd have cleaned up if I knew I was having company."

I smiled and slipped past her, ignoring Lindsey's offended scoff at not being considered company, and stopped when I saw...bedlam. Jessie's room was demolished, piles of clothes, random pizza boxes and soda cans, and one her shoes was somehow handing from a light fixture. I was a teenage guy, so I was no neat freak myself, but this was just awful. I turned to her and raised an eyebrow and Lindsey cracked up at the flush that covered my friend's face. "Big mess for such a tiny girl right? There's a reason I call her the human hurricane. Aside from eating her weight in junk she destroys every room she lives in."

Jessie's cheeks basically glowed with embarrassment. "I've been busy, I swear I usually clean up better than this." She walked across the room, shoving piles of clothes out of the way to make room for use to walk. It was hard not to laugh at the mortified expression on her face as she tried to ignore the mess we were wading through. "Anyway, what brings you here Shane? Do we have a mission or something? I know you've been out on crafting jobs non stop so I'm surprised to see you swinging by."

I chuckled at that, remembering my insane day. "I finished a few this morning and then spent the rest of the day in Jerk territory with Cap. It was...an experience." It was about eight PM now, so I'd been pretty sure she would still be up. "I came for two reasons, first I wanted to see if you wanted to get dinner at the cafeteria, and second because I have something for you." I reached into the bag I'd brought with me and left in Cap's car and pulled out the wand. "I made it with my new enchanting skill. It's not fancy or anything but it should collect your power and let you build up to throw it out all at once, so you can make something grow really big and fast in battle. It only has like seven uses though."

Her eyes were wide as she took it from me. "You made me this? That's...so cool! Faster growth speed will be huge! I'm working on some skills to give me plant control instead of just growth, but it works so slowly that even if I manage it, it wouldn't be combat viable." She swallowed hard pulling me into a tight hug. "Thank you Shane, this is super sweet of you. It means a lot that you went to all that trouble to make me a present." She blushed a bit more. "This is the first time anyone has ever enchanted anything for me."

Lindsey plucked the wand from her hand's, ignoring the smaller blonde's protests as she looked it over. "Yeah that's not that strange. Custom jobs are expensive. This isn't the kind of thing you would find on the board. For this kind of fine work you'd usually go to one of the higher H rankers for a private commission." She gave Jessie an impish grin. "You should lock this one down Jessie bear, crafters with this kind of versatility so early in their career are worth their weight in chits."

Jessie snatched the wand back with a scowl, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the door. "Well we're going to go eat dinner. Since I know you ate before you came over and you have such a problem with my room being messy you can clean it for me kay thanks bye!" She opened the door, tugged me through and kicked it shut, rolling her eyes but still sporting a slight smile. "Sorry about that, she means well but she has almost no filter. So, dinner in the cafeteria, want to go grab Callie?"

I snickered at that. "Yeah, might as well toss her a lifeline, poor girl looked ready to tear out her own hair. I guess they have her doing paperwork and filling out damage reports or something, and it sounded hellish to me." Jessie giggled at that, and led the way to the stairs. "Do you know where Stricture's office actually is? I haven't seen him except on the call with Callie since intake. With how high up he came across I assumed that he would be a bigger presence in the guild." We hit the stairs and started heading down, which I was pretty sure was at least the right direction.

Jessie snorted. "He is high up, but he spends all his time on paperwork. I've run into him once or twice and heard about him a few more times than that. Stricture is all about efficiency. He prefers to do his job in the background and never be seen. He's mostly left alone because that's a very valuable attitude in an accountant, and a very unusual one in an Ascendant, and nobody wants to rock the boat. His office is two floors down from mine." I nodded in understanding, as usual Jessie got the dish before anyone else. The girl should become a spymaster.

We made our way down the steps, stopping at a door where she'd told me the office was, and I was about to ask for better directions when I heard a loud voice ring through the hallway. We gave each other wry grins as I heard Callie bellow. "No, because you told me invoices for third level construction jobs had to be REVIEWED before we sent them to accounts payable!" There was a slight pause before she screamed. "HOW IS THAT A SECOND LEVEL CONSTRUCTION REQUEST? IT'S FOR A GODSDAMN SKYSCRAPER!" There was a frustrated screech. "SHUT UP! I DON'T CARE! I'M GOING TO DINNER, HANDLE IT YOURSELF!"

She stalked out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her loudly, eyes blazing with murderous anger, and then stopped short when she saw us. We just stood there, staring at the girl, whose face turned beet red. She seemed at a loss for words. Jessie, gods bless her, just ignored the awkwardness and gave her a friendly smile. "Hey Callie, we were about to go get something to eat in the cafeteria, would you like to join us?" Enchanted item or no, sometimes that girl's social skills were their own kind of magic.