Beth walked into the workshop and it was undergoing what felt like a complete overhaul. For one it was somehow larger. Not even in a this feels bigger kind of way but literally physically bigger. It hadn’t been cramped before but now there was plenty of walking space around the primary work bench. More impressively though Beth watched in real time as Dom reached behind himself for a tool on the desk behind him. A desk that was way too far away for him to reach but the space between the desk and Dom warped so his hands found the pliers he was after without adjustment. Seeing her walk in he stopped what he was doing and turned to address her, the rapid movement dying almost completely as he met Beth’s eyes, his pupils actually visible under his bushy eyebrows.

“I hadn’t quite intended for this to happen but you need to take your metallic jewellery Trial no. I can’t this allow not in my state s assisting me is the trial. I don’t want to do it like this, you are going to pass out on this floor for just so long when it’s completed but needs must. I’m gonna be a bit more hands on here too. While I set up though you need to Think about what you want most of the skill and keep it in mind throughout the Trial. That should hopefully influence your skill slightly. I wish we had more time, for that I’m truly sorry. I’ll make sure you are properly rewarded afterwards, I swear.

With that another screen appeared in front of Beth, she dismissed it quickly after all it didn’t contain any new information and observed Dom doing the same.

Trial: Metallic Jewellery (common) 25

Assist Domad Thruner in his current commission.

Time Limit: 2 weeks

Sure enough after that was done Dom continued to grab tools, many of which Beth had never seen before.

“Right so I’ve been commissioned to create a jewellery pair that can summon one each other from across the planet with as little mana as possible. Now in a word this is impossible for you, it’s more suited to enchanting than pure jewellery work but the client has limited options.” He paused and Beth found herself drawn once more into staring him directly in the eyes. “This is all under the strictest confidence you understand. No even for letters off planet you understand.” Beth nodded her head, There was a none inconsiderable fierceness to the way Dom spoke that left no margin for discussion. “First and foremost I need you to make a pair of chains. I’m afraid there are no tricks here it needs to be made link by link by yourself. I’ll be inspecting every single link before you attach the and I will be more critical than you’ve seen so far. You need to make them in consecutive order too. They should flow together. It will help the mana travel through and minimize the mana expenditure when used”

And critical he was, Beth hadn’t worked to such strict requirements before, Dom was at the opposite end of the desk carving down an opal while she worked. He had himself already discarded many as he made his tiny cuts attempting to negate his tremor as much as he could. When Beth would glance up the gem appeared to glow. Dom impressively was offering his feedback on Beth’s attempts often without looking up. Beth found herself discarding link after link before she finally had one that met with Dom’s approval. That wasn’t the start of a trend either, by the end of the day Beth only had 15 that had been deemed good enough. 15 out of the roughly 200 all in given the chain style they were going for.. She had to make 100 before worrying about connecting them together.

The project though required as soon as possible didn’t yet include mandated overtime so Beth found herself leaving at sundown, with the instruction to maximise her hours of sleep that night. Before falling asleep though she spent some time focusing in on how she had spent her time so far. Dom had advised she picked a focus to influence her skill. It made sense to her too. After all her floating step was almost certainly a result of spending so long trying to step as lightly as possible on the tree tops. Here she had her time making these two chains to influence the skill and she had absolutely no idea what to focus on. If she was honest she was simply focused on making the chains to the best of her ability. She was so exhausted from the making she fell asleep before she intending still thinking through about making various chains.

When Beth came into the workshop the nest day, the cleaning supplies missing from their usual spot, the door to the workshop was wide open and Dom was already hard at work. Beth joined him silently and they spent another day of near silence working side by side as Beth steadily improved her link making ability. Occasionally her mind would wander but it was always interrupted by a cough from Dom causing her to focus back up.

By the third day she had completed enough links to complete a full necklace, not that she had connected them yet, once they were all completed she would make small joining bars to connect up the necklace. Meanwhile, Dom continued to etch and subsequently discard Opal after Opal as he strived for perfection. Beth tried not to think about his efforts or the fact he was clearly struggling as she could see him getting more and more frustrated about his failures. This fed into his tremors in a vicious cycle that made his attempts worse and worse. Beth hadn’t seen him as anything other than her stoic master, seeing him struggle was painful. But there was nothing she could do about it and she didn’t want to make him feel worse by thinking about it too much.

The second necklace took only two days not including the cross bars. Two days in which Dom continued to struggle. By the end of day 5 he was looking very bad and Beth was suspecting he no longer left the workshop, not even to sleep or from the smell wash.

Beth once again collapsed into her room too tired from her work to do anything beyond chock down a meal and sleep. She had even skipped the usual night when she had a meal in the common room. She was just too tired to stay up any longer let alone to be social. Her battery was well and truly drained and all she wanted was to sleep for as long as humanly possible before getting started on the crossbars. However a restful night just wasn’t in the cards for her as in the early hours of the morning her door was flung open by her one and only master. Beth was barely awake when a gem was thrust into her face.

“I’ve done it! The opal is complete! I didn’t think I still had it in me.” Dom said excitedly.

Beth woke quickly and though she wasn’t quite swept up in the excitement, she congratulated Dom drawing him into a hug. Dom was beaming from ear to ear and turned to leave.

“Come we have to have a drink to celebrate. This other gem will be so much easier.”

He was off leaving Beth in a bit of a daze as he sang his way back towards the bar area of the inn. Beth got dressed quickly and arrived just as he was buying drinks for everybody. It was more or less empty due to the hour but Dom was a whirlwind of enthusiasm and the opportunity to drink with the exclusive Dom caused the atmosphere to improve immensely. This didn’t change the fact that Beth just wanted to sleep but she was awake now so sat in the corner nursing a drink. Not bringing down the mood particularly but only passively joining in when needed. Dom focused the conversation away from her and after she had finished her drink gave her a small nod as she started heading back to bed.

He called after her “See you at lunch” which caused Beth’s slightly forced smile to become more genuine. She settled back into bed the low murmur of the party being loud enough to be audible but primarily acting as white noise rather than being a problem for her abilities to fall asleep. She slept straight through both sunrise and breakfast and didn’t find herself rising until just before lunch, when feeling restored she grabbed some food for her and Dom and headed back to the workshop to begin working on the last stage of her Trial.