Seeing Callie viciously wolf down the cheese fries at the cafeteria made me smile. She was eating the starchy food like she was trying to exact vengeance, and apparently she wasn't satisfied because she glared down at it. "This sucks. I forgot why I stopped eating in the normal cafeteria." She took a swig of soda and looked at the two of us, both staring at her. "Next time I'll take you guys up to the executive lounge again. The food up there is way better. Still, thanks for inviting me, desk duty has me ready to throw a brick through someone's window."

Jessie and I exchanged smirks as we enjoyed our own meals, a steak for me and a huge bowl of spaghetti for her. We were eating in the employee cafeteria at the guild, the normal one that wasn't perched on clouds overlooking an endless ocean. Despite the lacking wow factor though the food was actually pretty good, at least by my standards. Granted I wasn't used to eating meals prepared by a master chef every day so I might have been a bit biased. I took a bite of my ribeye and raised an eyebrow at Callie. "What was that about a skyscraper."

She rolled her eyes. "Just yet another in a long list of minor errors I've made over the past few days. Stricture is an anal retentive ass. He has incredibly complicated and detailed rules for everything, and if you get confused by some random bit of overlap he acts like you're incompetent and berates you for an hour. If he wasn't such a wizard at accounting and paperwork no one would put up with him. As it is, mostly everyone just avoids him unless they run into trouble, so I don't even have visitors to distract from how unbearable he is."

She shook off her annoyance, shooting us both a worn smile. "Anyway how have you two been?" Her lips quirked up in a smirk. "I heard Ian took you out to the Jerk's territory for patrol today. I don't have the details but considering the constant barrage of weird those guys are capable of I'm guessing that was an...experience." She was clearly trying hard not to laugh, shoving more fries into her mouth to push down her giggles.

I glared. "You could have warned me. HE could have warned me. Literally anyone could have given me SOME kind of warning about what I was walking into. That whole section of town is a mix between a bad mob comedy and a damn cartoon. If I never go back there it'll be too soon. Does recursion effect whole areas or are there just so many of the jerks being pushed to weirdness that it spills over."

Her eyebrows went up in surprise. "That's...a very insightful question. There are places that are...Ascendant territories for lack of a better term, but they don't exist on a planet this small. They call them dungeons. They develop a profile similar to an ability and can gain stats as they gain renown. Great places to farm resources. They have a much higher incidence of Ascendant materials. Like I said though, those don't show up in places like this. In this case it's just a bunch of idiots too stupid to avoid recursion caught in a weirdness spiral."

She waved off any more questions. "The Jerks are best ignored as much as possible. They get too much attention as it is. Anyway, I was going to come looking for you. We ran into some luck. The guild master managed to get in touch with Harlequin and negotiated for the use of one of their best Inventors. They're having him sent over from the capital branch to try to get into that ring, so we might have a lead to follow sooner rather than later." She sounded excited for some progress and I was happy to hear it myself.

I was in an unfortunate position at the moment in terms of getting help from my uncle. Because of the rules about candidates he couldn't do more than answer general questions or give me access to things I had the money to pay for. In some ways despite knowing Zeke better someone like Stella was in a better position to get help from him than I was. I'd been considering asking him about the killer, but then I remembered he wasn't allowed to provide any help against anyone below E rank, and that would go up to D when I ranked up.

I finished my steak in companionable silence as the girls talked over recent goings on. Callie filled us in on some of the more absurd damage forms she'd filled out recently and Jessie showed off her new wand proudly, which got me a raised eyebrow from Callie. She didn't actually comment on it, though I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not because I was curious what the hell that look meant. Finally I finished my food and decided to ask something I'd been meaning to bring up. "So, Callie, would you be willing to help me with some training?"

She looked stunned. "I mean...you mean like sparring? Because I promise you Shane, that is not going to work out well for you. Fighting up ranks is only done if you have an extremely powerful combat ability and a heavy favoring of the relevant stats to bridge the gap. There's no real formula for it but with a crafting ability and your relatively even starting stats there's no possible way you're going to manage it." She looked like she thought I was an idiot for even asking. Which was fine, because I was pretty sure anyone else would be.

Luckily for me I WANTED her to be basically immune to my attacks. I'd been itching to test out one of my rogue abilities and I still had one attack left with my DS Mastery today to use for it. I gave her a wry grin. "I have a new move I want to test out but it's too dangerous to use on someone my own rank. Since you're so much stronger than I am it should be totally safe to test it on you, and I want to see what kind of output I can get from it." I was jittering with excitement to be able to test my rogue skills, I'd avoid the poisons just in case but I had so many great moves she could help with.

She raised an eyebrow at the obvious glee in my voice but shrugged. "I mean, as long as you know you're in for a total asskicking, sure. I'm curious to see what kind of crazy enchantment you came up with that makes you worry for the safety of people your own rank." She stood up, stretching a bit to work out the stiffness I assumed came from sitting behind a desk all day. She was dressed in a black sweater and black slacks, clearly prioritizing comfort while on desk duty and not caring at all about guild rules about being in costume.

A loud crack echoed from her neck as she pushed her head to either side, popping the joints and then rolling her head in a circle on her shoulders. "Ok, lets do this then. Follow me to the training room and we can see what you've got." She turned and strolled out of the cafeteria, past sturdy wood tables full of other capes eating together and by the long metal counter where the food was served in the use cafeteria style.

I got up to follow, thinking about all the powerful rogue moves I knew. In reality my options were limited. Poison, as stated was out, stealth was a no go since Callie's Perception was in the triple digits given she was in the mid to upper G ranks with her cap in elixir stats already maxed. Anything with shadow was out, as was anything past the first tier of the skill tree. Luckily rogue was the heaviest part of my build so I had a few options still. Jessie followed behind us as we headed for the training room and I thought over what I should do.

I was pretty sure she was going to tank it, because if she felt like dodging with her Might it wouldn't be an issue. So I decided to go with a blitz attack. I had a blow called Mercy Kill that dealt a hundred and fifty percent damage in exchange for emptying stamina, and that one should be perfect for this situation. That skill tree has some other really interesting moves further down, but Mercy Kill was the only first tier blitz attack I had so it would have to do. I reached into the bag and pulled out my bat with a grin.

I had no illusions I could hurt Callie with this attack. It wasn't about that, in fact that was better. I wanted to see what it looked like when I went all out. How much damage I could do. Six Might worth of pure force, three more from the bat, with a hundred fifty percent damage on top was twenty two or twenty three points of Might. More than twenty times the force that a peak mortal athlete could manage. Even if it didn't bridge the gap it would sure as hell make her take notice of what I could do.

We reached the training room and she took off the sweater, revealing a white tank top under it as she kicked off her shoes and walked to the center of the mat. She grinned at me. "With a ten point Impact lead and probably more than ten times your Vitality I'm not going to bother defending, but if you make me take a step I'll get you an all access pass to the executive lounge. Just to make things interesting." She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, making it easier for me, but she still looked confident.

I nodded seriously. Reaching inside, I resonated my Minor Enchanting Mastery with my Lesser Doom Sovereign Mastery, along with my Fantasy, my Might, my Vitality, my Perception and my Focus just to be thorough. I wanted this blow to land at exactly the right angle. Granted she could easily dodge it no matter what stats I used, but she wouldn't. I bent my knees, gripping the bat, and wound up for a shot. I did my best to engage my back, my shoulders, my hips, every possible part of my body as I stacked Mercy Kill onto my weapon and swung right at her jaw.

I felt the backlash slam into my hands as I hit her. Callie had more than six TIMES the Impact I did, and even with all the various boosts and amplifications I absolutely could not hurt her, but I caught her as she was bouncing, and when she came down, her back foot slid just an inch back to steady her. She blinked at me. I was a bit busy holding my hands, which I was pretty sure only avoided breakage because of the shock absorbers in my suit. I doubled over, hissing in pain at using more force than my body could really safely handle, but still proud.

I dropped the bat, which pretty much crumbled to dust when it hit the ground, and I winced a bit before smiling up at her. She rubbed her jaw a bit, it wasn't even red, but she looked impressed. "Damn. I think even Cap would have a problem throwing a punch like that. Whatever that was, it's pretty damned impressive. You were right to test it on me, because that probably would have killed most H rankers." She grinned at me. "The question is, can you do it again? Because if you can do that in a fight more than once we might make an actual combatant out of you."