A leg covered in mismatched leather armor corroded by both use and time came rushing in at my side but unlike yesterday...and the two days before that, I was ready and expecting it. I jumped over it and rolled in the dirt, it hadn't been raining in the last few days so the ground was blessedly dry otherwise I'd be covered in mud from head to toe.

I jumped up and went back into my dash, evading the large hand coming from behind to grab me by the scruff of my clothes.

"Fuck YOU, Edward!" I shouted, receiving an enraged growl in return.

Today, like every other day since that damned woman started training me, the day was starting with a Keep-wide game of 'kick the elf'. I had to run two laps around the Keep and every guard that managed to land a kick or grab me would get a copper from that psychopath and I'd get thrown back into the dungeon after getting trained to near death.

Edward was now the proud owner of four copper coins just because of that, the asshole always waited for me around some corner or even right outside of my shack to grab me and beat me up. I overheard that it had something to do with an elven girl he fancied rejecting his advances, rather rudely at that.

Not that I can really hate her for it, he has a face, not even a Trogg could love.

Of course, he was far from the only one who was all too happy to kick me in the ribs even without the monetary compensation but he was by far the most malicious so cursing him out felt rather refreshing.

I heard him trampling after me but he was a big slow moron and I was a slippery and fast girl. Turns out I must have been at the edge of turning into a Wretch as after only five days of clutching the mana stone I was already as spry as any other girl my age should be. I was 12 after all, I should have had enough stamina to run around for eight hours and annoy my parents for another eight.

Parents.

Curiously the only thing I felt when I thought of the word and the associated people was a panging emptiness, like an old wound that wasn't quite healed but faded enough to ignore. I didn't remember a single thing about ever having parents, my first memories were still waking up in that cell though I felt some weird things and thought some even weirder when I thought of stuff.

I was running through dirty streets which were just dirt roads edged by shabby half-stone half-wood houses. Not many people were walking about, this was a frontier Keep after all but there were enough brutish guards around to make my two daily laps hellish.

Ed was a slow muscle-head so I'd already lost him a few bends behind, now as I stepped onto the next street I saw five figures walking around. I didn't stop but I ran an evaluating gaze over each of them, two women in skirts, probably not a problem, a scrawny dude, a kid and one armored guy similar to Ed but smaller in the muscle department. Maybe that meant he was more blessed in the brain department so I kept an eye on him and the kid.

It wouldn't be the first time that I got my feet tangled because a seemingly innocent and harmless kid tripped me up, one even threw a mudball right into my face which left me half-blind for the rest of the run and bruised all over since I couldn't do much to avoid the kicks. What was worse was that if I got all beat up like this that sadistic woman would throw me back into the dungeon without either a bath or a rug.

I knew it was a power thing but it worked, gods damn it, it worked. I did my best all day so I could get a bath and sleep in a bed at the end of it even if my muscles were screaming at me not to do it, to just give up and let it be how it was meant to be.

My eyes were kept on the two supposed threats, I liked to keep at least two meters between me and any other person on the street but they were barely three meters wide so when there were more of them out like this I was in a bind. The scrawny guy was talking with one of the women and they were closest to me, I skirted around them, sticking to the opposite wall as I passed them by.

Next was the kid swinging his legs back and forth while he sat on a windowsill, he was casting furtive glances at me which made me tense, I kept my eyes on his arms and legs but as I ran by him he didn't do anything aside from glancing at me. Okay, weird, whatever.

Next was the armored guy and the other woman, she was dressed more nicely in a thin summer dress that didn't cover much of her figure and left her legs bare from the knee down. Dumb way of clothing in this sort of weather, if she had clothes that nice she could have worn a coat. I was jealous, of course, I was, I had to wear the same damned pants which left my thighs chaffed and itchy while this woman was out here in a nice dress.

My brooding almost left me unprepared for the kick aimed at my shin, the guy wasn't even looking at me and he almost hit me even like that.

I stumbled but I managed to collect myself and keep my face away from the ground, I scrambled away in a very undignified manner while casting a murderous glare at the guy who clicked his tongue but was seemingly unwilling to further interrupt his conversation with the woman.

This was my second lap already and with only a few more bands until I returned to my shack I managed it without any further problems, I was breathing heavily and my whole body felt warm. My legs ached and itched all over, soreness was an entirely different beast to tackle with the regeneration ring but it did wonders overnight. It was probably the only thing that made me able to stand on my legs on the second day...or the third or any of the following ones.

I arrived at my shack and took a deep breath, I straightened my spine and calmed my breathing while dusting down my clothes and fixing up my hair a bit. That damned woman always demanded that I look presentable despite literally throwing me around in the mud and not allowing me to bathe for days at times.

A hand went onto the door and pushed it in with a painful creak, I strode in with confidence I hardly felt and stared at my tortur- *cough* trainer. Because she wasn't my master or teacher yet, that was an honor I'd only have once I passed her test at the end of the month. She was sitting cross-legged on my chair, carving lines and shapes into my poor table, wasn't that thing abused enough already?

"You are back," she stated without looking at me, "at least you aren't covered in shit today."

I grimaced. Edward was an ass like that. I still think there was some of it left in my nose as I couldn't get that disgusting smell out of it for days but maybe yesterday's lengthy scrubbing did something.

"Alright," she sighed wearily and stood up, casting a bored gaze at me like it was the most bothersome thing in the world to even look at me, "Drink."

I caught the small vial that she sent spinning through the air with trembling hands and clutched it tightly, though I was tempted to trade having to drink it for whatever punishment I'd get for accidentally dropping it. I gulped and uncorked the top with shaky fingers, I closed my eyes and sent the contents of it down my throat while focusing on not breathing or tasting the vile thing.

"Urghhh," I groaned as my stomach twisted and cold sweat started forming on my skin as my vision started to dim.

"Sit down," her voice reached me, annoyed at having to open her mouth I assumed.

I did as I was told though, it was a somewhat viable idea to my rapidly muddling mind.

Laid out on the floor like a starfish I stared at the ceiling, my insides were itching and I really wanted to scratch them even if I had to reach down my throat to do it but all my limbs felt like an orc was sitting on them. At most, I could flap them around and when I managed to do that with my right hand I slapped myself in the face. I might have heard a snort, but it might have been a hallucination.

I have been poisoned.

I thought through the hazy fog that descended on my mind.

Again.

This was even worse than the previous one too, which only made me heave and gave me nausea for an hour but now I felt like I was actually dying. Though my condition was horrendous, it wasn't deteriorating, my vision was dim and unfocused and my whole body was ravaged by bouts of coldness and weakness but it wasn't getting worse, I wasn't slowly losing my consciousness.

Time became foggy as I just stared up, not even counting the nails in the roof but just focusing on comprehending some of the things I was seeing. Most of the time thought, I was just happy to be staring aimlessly out of my head.

After who knows how much time passed my vision started to clear, the itching all inside my stomach was horrendously itching, it was much worse than how my arm felt after I used it as a makeshift pillow in the dungeon but the feeling was similar just it wasn't going away with time. Feeling and some semblance of strength was returning to my limbs too, that is to say, I could move my fingers and I could look around.

"You survived," the woman said dryly as she crouched next to me, staring at me with those bored brown eyes of hers.

If I could speak I'd have liked to swear and curse her ancestry going nine generations back, that was horrible, easily the worst experience of my rather short life and just now she alluded to it having a chance of killing me too.

Of course, those would have remained just as they were even if my tongue wasn't a languid piece of muscle right now, I was arguably a coward and cursing out the woman who diverted my fate from being a gladiator or a mini bed warmer to some old man wasn't something I'd have the guts to do.

Still!!! Who does that!!

A sharp pain cracked into my skull as new information engraved itself into my memory and it was the weirdest set of niche knowledge I've gotten so far.

Using my newfound knowledge I thought up a lengthy curse going on through 300 words and made in a dozen different languages that I felt captured my current feelings towards the woman. Yes, I just learned a plethora of curse and swear words in about as many languages as there were.

I felt her gloved fingers on my cheek, she forced my mouth open and I didn't have any power to resist. I felt some liquid slide down my throat and then she released me.

"Wha-" I exclaimed as the numbness and tingling were washed away in less than a minute, I felt even better than before I drank that poison.

"That was twenty silver," she said coldly, "I'm sure you'll repay me in the future...somehow."

"Eh?" Like hell I am!

"A low-grade healing potion is still a healing potion," she shrugged, "now get up, you'd have been useless as you were anyway."

She was up and out of the shack in a blink, looking back at me with an annoyed look.

"Move," she glared at me and I scrambled to my feet, finding myself more than refreshed, I was overloaded. The magical energy left over from the alchemical concoction was still flowing through my body in warm waves, refreshing, rejuvenating and revitalizing my withered body. I didn't know when and how I was going to return to my 'top' condition where I wasn't starving for mana anymore but right now it felt impossible at the same time with each bout of mana flowing into me it felt like I was getting stronger, faster and gain more stamina.

I followed after the woman whose name I still didn't know, my newish boots thankfully keeping the dirt and mud from sticking to my bare skin like they did on the first day.

We walked through the same streets as before but unlike when I ran through them and got calculating looks and sneers now we were getting fearful glances and ample space to walk in the middle of the street. Well, that was probably thanks to the woman, she was certifiably psychopathic and all too quick to throw daggers but even that shouldn't gain her this level of notoriety.

Durneholde Keep always felt depressing to me, I didn't know why but the dirt road, cold stone houses and the dull colors of the place made it all feel so...dreary I guess? The whole fortress was like that, same colors, same people, same shoddy armor, same cold walls made of the same stone bricks.

The smell though, oh gods the smell. I didn't know why but I felt all around revolted by the hygienic standard of the keep, I was convinced I was one of a select few who even bothered scrubbing themselves down with a wet rug every few days. Some people I suspected didn't even bother cleaning themselves after defecating.

My slowly increasing sensitivity to smell wasn't doing me any good in here.

Brown sludge was flowing down the sides of the street and during my runs, I had to avoid not just sadistic humans but unexpected sludge being poured out of second-floor windows.

The sounds were only a touch better, stone walls were used but there were enough buildings made of only wood for me to hear all too much. My pointy ears weren't just for show and while I had nothing on wolves and such, I had much better hearing than regular humans.

Unfortunately for my poor soul, the combination of women and the threat of death at any day to an incoming Troll raid from the mountains usually results in a single thing. Even more unfortunate was the fact that some knowledge about how the act of how what happened happened anatomically was now eternally engraved upon my mind.

The one saving grace of it all was that usually, I was far too tired by the end of the day to pay any mind to such stuff happening around me, my psychotic trainer only left me off the hook once I collapsed from exhaustion and nearly passed out.

I didn't even have the chance to check out the other tabs on that blue window.

I glanced at the cloaked back of the woman, she put a dirty brown cloak around her shoulders with a cowl that cast a deep shadow over her face. She really was the poster girl of being a rogue.

I should have some free minutes until we arrive wherever.

With a thought, the window flickered to life before my eyes and I quickly selected the Skills tab which made the floating letters shimmer and reassemble to show a rather short entry.

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SKILLS:

* Acrobatics [Rare]: Not only is your body flexible, but you're also able to pull off mind-blowing tricks and dare-devil feats of dexterity.

* Requires: Contortionist [Uncommon]

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Oh, cool.

My expectations were low and I feared there would be some accompanying Skills going with Bombshell so this simple skill was quite a relief. As I thought some more I realized this might be why I was getting so used to my body this rapidly, as soon as I had the strength and stamina to run around I could do jumps, rolls, dodges and some other stuff I was a bit fearful of trying despite feeling like I was more than capable of doing them. 'Mind-blowing tricks and dare-devil feats of dexterity' was a bit of a stretch for knowing how to do a front flip and climb a tree but maybe it'd come slowly as my body regained more strength.

Quite satisfied with that I didn't wait anymore and quickly opened the Traits tab while I still had the courage to do so.

---------------

TRAITS:

* Accelerated Training [Uncommon]: You are a natural at improving your skills and abilities. The time needed to fulfill your potential in your classes and professions is cut in half.

* Natural Rejection [Detrimental]: Domesticated animals become more agitated in your presence, while wild animals will outright attack. Flowers will close near you, and bugs will bother or sting you more often. Expect a wary eye from druids that you meet.

* Sanction Item - [Free Slots: 0 / 2]: You may sanction one item at any given time with a cooldown of 24 hours. Sanctioned items cannot be taken or stolen by other characters. You may choose this option as many times as you can afford.

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One arguably overpowered one, one annoying one and another rather powerful one, I'll count this as a win.

A soft snort came without prompting as I read the second one, animals and druids, I could understand forsaking civilization if it all smelled like shit as Durnehold did but I knew there were cities like Dalaran and Silvermoon too, places of knowledge, magic and innovation. So to me, druids felt like a weird bunch, they liked turning into animals for one, avoided bathing, slept around for centuries and acted like savages.

Again, it's happening again!

My jaw tightened in irritation, this wasn't me, I didn't hate druids or animals so why did I feel an inherent dislike for them?

Even if I knew of it, I couldn't do anything about my unnatural feelings. I took note of them and maybe I'd try acting against them in the future but they remained, when I thought of befriending a druid I felt my stomach twist unpleasantly.

"We are here," the woman tore on her heels and looked at me.

I tried to remain unfazed but I might have slapped the window out of my face in a panic so now she was looking at me weirdly. She couldn't see the window, of that I was sure, but she was me slapping at the air so I must have looked quite foolish.

We arrived at some sort of training area with armored dummies lined up on one side of the dirt clearing right next to the towering outer walls of the Keep.

"Hold this," she extended a hilt to me and I grabbed it obediently, turning it around it was revealed to be a rather simple dagger made of steel, "cut me."

"What?"

"Cut me," she repeated with a surprisingly patient tone, "you can keep the dagger if you manage to make me bleed."

I gulped, glancing down at the dagger I held and up at her awaiting gaze, she was only a few meters away from me but I saw her disappear into thin air and reappear a moment later somewhere else.

"Am I going to the cell if I can't?" I asked nervously as I tried to hold the thing as steadily as I could, I didn't have any knowledge of how to wield a weapon like this but it should be held firmly I think?

"Oh~ nervous are you?" she let out a chuckle and I could see her mouth curling into a sneer beneath her cowl, "of course you ar-"

She was cut off as I kicked off of the ground, already up in her face at striking distance. I lashed out with the dagger, aiming at her chest as the largest target and hoping she couldn't dodge if I targeted the center of her mass.

"OOOOOFfff," I doubled over as a force slammed into my stomach and the dagger weakly fell out of my grip.

The woman who was standing before me not a moment ago has already stepped to the side and slammed her fist into me without me even seeing her move.

Darkness started crawling in from the edge of my vision as I coughed and wheezed, my knees buckled and I collapsed into the dirt.

"Nice try~"

Then I passed out, already dreading the back aches I'd be getting from sleeping on the stone floor again.