Lazily, Ranthia awoke in her criminally—seriously how was this thing legal?—plush bed and spent a while just rolling around languishing in bed while she giggled to herself like a lovestruck fool.
She was dating! Hexara called it a date and promised that the next time—…!
Ranthia squirmed with delight beneath her soft blanket.
She got a later start than she had expected, but Ranthia’s first task for the new day was to visit the Adventurer’s Guild. He was occupied, so she left a message to thank the Guildmaster with his assistant (one of his assistants? Ariminum was nuts), then set about her task: seeking advice.
She needed new armor and thus needed to know who could be trusted to have reliable quality in town. There were more female Adventurers in Ariminum than she had ever met in every other town combined, so she actually had some thin hope that armor suited to someone with a modest chest could be attained without a special commission. She made a real effort to keep her bubbly, bright mood to herself while she asked the clerks on duty and bounced around the various Adventurers that were present as she bugged them for recommendations.
It also doubled as her opportunity to introduce herself to her peers.
For the most part everyone was very polite and many of them were actually helpful. Ranthia had directions to a dozen different shops that catered to Adventurers and had learned the faces—she hadn’t miraculously absorbed a single name—of many of those around.
When Ranthia was confident that she had what she needed, she was halfway out of the Adventurer’s Guild when an A-Ranked Adventurer pulled her aside, his face serious. Ranthia was briefly nervous, but…
“Ignore all the other suggestions. They’re decent for new Adventurers who are buying some cheap mismatched armor. Take it from me, if you have any aspirations to get past Rank B you really need to invest in a custom-made suit with your build, something of high quality that you can trust your life to. You want light armor, right? You can ask the Guildmaster too and he’ll tell you the same place, almost all of us at Rank A—at least those of us that want leather—use the same guy. Go to the Leather Oak, you won’t regret it.” He quietly added the directions to the shop, before he clapped her roughly on the shoulder and went back to the job board where he had been lurking.
Convinced, Ranthia set out to the location of this custom shop that the Adventurer had given her.
She had already spent a small fortune on an outfit, there was real sense in not cheaping out on the armor that might save her life.
The attendant behind the desk at the Leather Oak was a massive man that looked like the physical embodiment of the word blacksmith. Muscles upon muscles, focused primarily on the arms and shoulders. Skin that looked permanently toasted. Intense eyes.
The man turned out to be the leather worker, of course, because reality wasn’t actually a pile of cliches.
“So, you want light armor, I assume?” The man asked after he returned her guild symbol.
“Yeah, I need something that won’t get in the way of my dexterity. Not worried so much about speed, I just need full flexibility with the best protection that can give me.” Ranthia replied.
The man nodded and stroked his bare chin.
“Alright. It’ll for the most part be as close as I can safely get to the style of armor that the Rangers and Sentinels use, without causing you problems of course. Except no worthless laminar vests here. Any other odd requirements?”
“I have a pouch of arcanite here that I’d love to get integrated into the… where would you recommend? The chest?”
“Bracers. You don’t want any compromise on your chest or stomach protection, bracers can be thickened without restricting you. Less likely to get torn apart too.” The man replied immediately, without even taking a moment to consider.
“Sounds great, I’ll trust your judgment. Oh, also, I have a vest with arcanite woven into it. I’d like to be able to wear it under my armor, would that be possible?”
“Yeah, I can adjust the chest a bit to accommodate that. Let’s get measurements, and you’ll need to show me that vest.”
Her armor was successfully ordered, though it would be another eight days or so until it was ready. She had, for the record, been completely wrong about her lovely outfit costing as much as custom armor. She had sorely underestimated just how expensive good custom work could be.
Still, she could practically hear Tatius lecturing her from the depths of Samsara—gods and goddesses, would she ever be able to do anything connected to Adventuring without remembering the men and having to fight against sudden tears?—when she was tempted to skimp on her personal protection. She was a grown woman and was now a solo Adventurer, at least until she felt whole enough to even consider joining another party. She needed real armor; cutesy leather blankets wouldn’t cut it anymore.
Ranthia had a ton of tasks on her to-do list. She wanted to experiment with [Shards of Reflection], she wanted to train (and maybe practice some of her new ideas), she wanted to visit the grand temple properly to pray, she wanted to explore Ariminum further, she wanted to see if there were any temples in town dedicated exclusively to Xaoc, she needed to start taking jobs that actually paid in coin before she wore out what the men had left her, she had to visit the site of their final battle, and numerous other lesser tasks.
Instead, Ranthia realized it was nearly lunch time and decided to surprise her girlfriend with food.
Not only was there a stall selling nature’s most perfect food—rabbit stew—but the owner actually let her take a couple of big bowls with her. She had promised to return the wooden bowls after lunch and the stall owner said his wife loved that shop, which somehow increased his willingness to trust Ranthia.
Best food stall ever!
“Hi, is Hexara in? I thought I’d surprise her with lunch.” Ranthia announced as she carefully entered the shop, carrying the two dangerously full wooden bowls.
She was grateful that dexterity was her best stat, over a thousand points in it helped her avoid spilling a single drop from either steaming bowl.
“Oh, you have great timing, she just finished up with her last client and was cleaning up before she ate, let me get her for you!” The counter girl replied.
It only took a few moments for a very surprised Hexara to arrive.
“Oh, Ranthia! What’s all this? You’re sweet, but we usually just buy from nearby stalls and eat in the staff lounge, and…”
“Oh, come off it, half the staff lets their husbands join them for lunch sometimes and Albina still shows up to hang out with us old timers over lunch every now and then. Just last week she brought her oldest kid with her too! Come on, you’ve been bragging about your new girl all morning, there’s no need to be shy.” A different woman chastised Hexara before she winked at Ranthia and led them back to the staff lounge.
Which was basically just a fancy name for a small room where they had—just barely—managed to cram a table into each corner.
Hexara was a bit reserved at first, but the other two ladies that shared the table with them started to—loudly and pointedly—discuss their own romantic partners, so Hexara finally relaxed and chatted with Ranthia while they ate. Also, she actually liked rabbit stew, which clearly meant that their relationship was meant to be.
“So yeah, [Sexy] is actually a class skill for me now, when I got [Sexy Stylist] it got absorbed. My poor general [Beautician] class almost never gets any levels, but I love the work that I do here. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for giving me the push to try for my old dream again.” Hexara boasted.
“Wait, she’s the kid you mentioned? You never mentioned how hot she was.” One of the coworkers butted in before Ranthia could reply.
“She was a kid back then! She only got hot when she got out of my sight!” Hexara protested with the sexiest little blush coloring her cheeks.
“Oh? I’d like to hear more about how hot I got.” Ranthia teased, feeling bold. Especially since [Sexy] actually leveled just her girlfriend bragging about her.
[*ding!* [Sexy] has reached level 88!]
“Well, I mean I usually flirt with any customer that isn’t put off by it. It’s a good sales tactic.” This had the entire table nodding. “But! I don’t usually get into it, even when someone flirts back. It’s just business. But when you hit me with that smile and that little sultry purring moan and told me I was [Sexy] too, I swear I was worried that I’d… Oh goddess, what am I even saying?!” Hexara suddenly gasped after she trailed off, her blush deepening.
The other women laughed, Ranthia rewarded Hexara with a quick kiss before she turned back to her bowl of stew.
“So, what’s next for you?” Hexara finally asked while she over-aggressively dipped a crust of bread into her stew in a desperate bid to master her own embarrassment.
“Honestly, I’m still not sure. I feel like I have so much to do. Trying to settle into place feels kind of overwhelming with a city this big.” Ranthia admitted.
“Then take a day to yourself. I’ll be working late and will be beat by the time that I get home, so you’ll be on your own tonight.” Hexara suggested.
“Well, if I get too lonely, I’ll be thinking of you, even if I can’t get that promise for our second date from you today.” Ranthia flirted shamelessly.
Hexara went absolutely scarlet, which was all the explanation that her coworkers required.
“Oh, you two are adorable! I thought my husband and I were bad, but I could watch the two of you all day.” The first woman teased.
“They might not want anyone to watch their ‘second date’ though.” The other coworker piled on.
“Don’t be too mean to Hexy, she’s heavily booked today, and we don’t want to break her.” One of the women at another table chided with a grin.
Hexara just redoubled her efforts on her food while muttering something about lunch coming to an end. A few other women drifted in and out as sessions ended or came up, so it wasn’t like every employee was in the room at the same time.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
After they finished eating, Hexara offered Ranthia a quick kiss—which she allowed to linger at her coworkers’ insistence—and smiled. Ranthia grabbed her and dipped her for a far more passionate smooch—to applause—before she collected the bowls and let Hexara flee back to work.
With her heart far more fulfilled and far less sad, Ranthia was ready to face her day.
Ranthia decided that she wasn’t surprised, not truly. When she had returned to the Owl’s Sanctum and asked if there was space that she could train she hadn’t expected much, but when one of the staff led her into a large area where they had ‘fitness trainers’ available and gave her access to a private—lockable!—room just off it, she just… couldn’t be surprised.
The place was ridiculous. Someday, maybe, she’d get used to it.
Ranthia decided that she needed to spend more time experimenting with her class abilities before she did much else. Training her body was calling to her too, but she needed to know exactly what she was capable of before she tried to change anything about her own style. …Plus, she had half of Hexara’s bowl of stew too, when her girlfriend (mmm, her girlfriend) got full. Her stomach’s vote for something less physical pushed her over the edge.
Ranthia knew from experience—not that she had tried often—that creating or modifying a mental image still took her a significant portion of a day spent meditating while she visualized. Ideally, she still needed good light and a mirror too, even if she intended to only modify from an existing image stored in [Image Recall]. She also needed to be able to focus all of her attention on the task and even relatively minor or brief distractions seemed to wholly ruin her result.
She strongly suspected that [Image Recall] had some, possibly minor, effect that helped clean up mistakes that she made. The images that she stored in it seemed to more-or-less reliably be viable, while images that she used without storing them felt like a coin toss on viability.
While she sorely wished that she could make an image faster, nothing that she had ever tried seemed to give her any faster results, at least not without ruining the end product.
Modifying an image that was stored in [Image Recall] came far more easily. It still took time and access to mirrors, but it took less time and left her mind far less worn out than when she worked from scratch.
But until she got a third slot in [Image Recall] she couldn’t experiment with [Distorted Likeness] much, though she updated her ‘default’ image a few times while she practiced. It wasn’t like she still had her leather cloak anyway, so it needed to be updated.
Instead, she experimented with her mirror images with objects once again, which took forever due to the mana costs and need to channel.
First, she confirmed what she already knew. She’d proven—and expected—back when she earned her new home that wearing the tattered remnants of her old leather cloak and shifting into her stored image of herself with it intact did not repair the armor. Instead, the mirror image’s cloak suddenly transformed into the tattered version the instant she shifted into it. Tragic, but completely unsurprising. She was lucky enough that she got free healing out of—wait, hadn’t she meant to visit a Dark [Healer] the other day? She vowed to do that tomorrow, she was busy!
Similarly, if she set down her knife and then shifted into an image that had it on-hand, the knife would vanish. Her mirror image shifting couldn’t be used to quickly dress herself (yes if she held a tunic and shifted into an image of her wearing the same—or a similar enough—tunic she was suddenly wearing it, up until she shifted back to her naked true body that was still holding the tunic) or retrieve a thrown weapon or anything like that. That was a real shame; it would have been handy if she could take her upcoming armor off while she slept then just shift into it without needing to get all the straps done properly. It also meant that she couldn’t start throwing her knives without disarming herself—not that she had any skills for that anyway.
Less intuitive was how her pouches and other containers worked. If she took a potion out of a pouch and resealed it then shifted, the potion would of course be gone when she reached into the pouch. Weirder was the fact that she couldn’t just put the potion into her pouch then shift into a mirror image of her holding the potion. Well, she could, but the potion disappeared from her hand, though it was still inside the pouch. Even more confusing, it wasn’t like she had to update her mental image stored in [Image Recall] every time she added anything to her pouches. The contents were just the same.
Ranthia wanted to rip all of her hair out when she realized she could use a mental image with her knives in her hand and when she shifted, they would be in her hands instead of their sheaths. What was the difference?!
It was late in the night when she finally figured it out, at which point she felt very silly and dumb.
The difference was that her knives were always visible, at least partially. And partial visibility was all that mattered when it came to whether her image needed—or could—reference the object. This was proven easily enough once she experimented with her cloth bandages. In a pouch, fine. Out of a pouch and visible, it wouldn’t go with her.
She could still control poses freely—gods it would have sucked if she needed a separate image for every pose—so she was able to confirm that if she hid a bandage inside her hands, without any of it peeking out, she could carry it. That, at least, had some potential.
Not that she had any idea what to do with that, but it was worth bearing in mind.
Still all of this meant that any time she added or changed a pouch on her belt she’d have to update her image, or it’d just be absent when she tried to shift to another body. It was a hassle, but at least she learned before it became a problem on the field.
And, all in all, it was good practice.
[*ding!* [Distorted Likeness] has leveled from 6 to level 10!]
[*ding!* [Image Recall] has leveled from 38 to level 41!]
“Hello?” Ranthia called out as she entered the [Healer]’s building bright and early the next morning. …Except, strangely, there was no one at the counter. Ranthia looked around and called out a bit louder, wondering if she had somehow stopped by too early or something.
A man clearly heard her and came hurriedly down the hallway.
“My apologies! My apprentices were all needed, uh, for a thing with the town guard. I hadn’t actually intended to leave the door unlocked. I do have a meeting with some important people soon, but is there something I can help you with quickly?” The man asked.
“Oh, I uh, got bitten by a… few big rats the other day. I’m pretty sure I’m fine, but I wanted to get a Dark [Healer] to make sure there were no diseases in me.” Ranthia finally managed, once she got past being caught so off-guard.
“Ha, well, as much as I hate to cost myself a sale, you actually walked through one of my Pyronox gates coming in the door. An unfortunate safety measure needed these days. Let’s see… doesn’t look like there were any jumps in the mana consumption from it, so I’d say you were already clean. Did you need me to look at the bite wounds themselves to see if I can do anything to help them heal?”
Ranthia froze, she actually hadn’t even thought of the fact that she didn’t actually have the wounds.
“Ah, uh, no that won’t be necessary.”
The man raised an eyebrow.
“They, uh… I have a [Warrior] class for my second? I heal fast?” Ranthia lamely offered.
“A lucky woman! Well, if you ever need any other services, I am Markus and I or my apprentices would be happy to help. So please, come see us again! I swear we’re usually less sloppy, today has just been a day of very sudden changes. Here, I’ll show you out, unfortunately I do need to get ready for my own meeting.”
He walked her out through the large—and oddly familiar, but it wasn’t like she expected he was the only Pyronox [Healer] in Remus—gateway of black flame that she had managed to completely miss when she arrived. She had attributed the darkness to how bright it was outside versus how dark the healer kept his business. The man truly seemed to love his black color schemes.
Ranthia shrugged off the weirdness about the guard needing multiple healers and went about her day. She was just kind of pleasantly surprised that the [Healer] hadn’t demanded any coin, even if she hadn’t needed healing and was only inadvertently treated.
Ranthia was terribly tempted to visit Hexara for lunch again, but she didn’t want to come across as pushy or needy. Hexara certainly hadn’t invited her to stop by for lunch again, which was what really cinched the decision to not show up.
Instead, Ranthia visited the grand temple again. A short query from someone that worked in the temple later, and Ranthia found herself knelt in front of the—well, grand—altar to Xaoc. There were even other men and women in prayer around the altar too, which pleased her greatly.
Ranthia knew that she was far from the only person that prayed to Xaoc—he was one of the five great gods, after all—but she rarely encountered other people at his altar at the same time. Especially since she tended to visit temples outside of peak hours.
Hey Xaoc, I hope you aren’t too busy. I’m still trying to get settled into Ariminum, but I swear I’ll find a chance to cause some nice chaos soon. …I’m actually kind of feeling guilty about how little I’ve accomplished since I came here, but I believe you’d understand. Between… well… Tatius and Pupius and—heh—I guess just everything else?
The temple worker mentioned to me that there’s a temple dedicated to you somewhere around the city, so I’ll find that in the future. …Once I have some chaos to report.
Just to be clear before I say this, I am not asking for your intercession or anything, but, well… Wish me luck with my new relationship? I think I could have something special with Hexara. She already knows me better than my ex ever did, and we seem to have more in common. And oh my—erm, you—she is so hot! I’d say she’s out of my league, but I think I’m getting there? I don’t know, that sounds so horribly self-centered when I put it into words.
If any of these other prayers are asking for any miracles that would add some nice chaos to the world, please consider granting them a boon? And if you ever need me for anything, please, let me know. I’m always at your service.
Xaoc’s response felt like a pat on the head once she concluded her prayer. Ranthia blushed slightly, not even slightly sure at how to take her deity’s little sign of affection, before she stood up.
Her next stop was her vault—which she reached without incident—so she could retrieve a couple of mementos of the men to keep in her room. She lingered for a while with every item—both mundane and important—until she finally dried her tears and settled on two. Tatius’ dinosaur bone necklace and Pupius’ crime against dolls.
They were items that she could look upon each and every day while she remembered the men.
And maybe, just maybe, eventually it would hurt her less to be reminded.
Ranthia visited her room to set up the mementos. The necklace was hung near the door—Tatius reminding her to check her gear one last time before she left—while Pupius’ doll was placed on the desk.
Once she finished fiddling with the objects—as if there was a real difference between any of the last eight adjustments she made to the doll’s position—she changed into one of the cheap men’s tunics that she had brought with her to Ariminum and set off to get access to the training area again.
Ranthia felt a strange blend of excitement and nervousness once she was isolated in the private room once again. It was technically a different room this time since her last was occupied by a guided meditation group, though it was basically identical.
She had been inspired.
She wanted to experiment.
She had precious little experience dancing. Pupius had taught her a bit ahead of the festival with her ex, but he had focused on teaching her to cheat. She had enough dexterity to come off as graceful and intentional, even when she was just desperately copying what everyone else was doing.
Ranthia practically salivated at the idea of incorporating a majestic dance—like that pale woman’s—into her combat style, but that was several steps down the road. First, she needed to dance.
…Ranthia stood there, awkwardly, for many long moments. As if she was expecting the dance to just happen to her, as opposed to something she instigated.
“Ugh, I’m being ridiculous. No one’s here. No one’s judging me,” her eyes flicked upward, as if to ensure Xaoc wasn’t peeking, “I need to just go for it. Recreate what that woman did. Easy.” She finally chided herself.
Throughout history there were people naturally gifted with the arts. [Artisans] who created skilled works on their first attempts. [Bards] that strummed catchy tunes on their instruments. [Storytellers] who crafted an engaging tale on their first attempt.
Ranthia was not part of that elite minority. She, like most people, was embarrassed by her initial efforts. Even with her dexterity, she felt clumsy as she attempted a dance that was far more complicated than it had seemed when she was a mere audience to it.
But like artists since the dawn of Creation, Ranthia improved. Steadily, bit by bit, she found errors and overcame them.
Morning turned to noon, and she accomplished the dance without crashing to the floor or colliding with a wall. That was better than her first several attempts.
Noon turned to evening—her appetite went unnoticed while she focused—and she finally realized that many of her difficulties stemmed from her footing. She was using her entire foot, but… well, unfortunately she hadn’t paid much attention to the dancer’s feet. She still had a bit of a complex about feet—they were just so weird—left over from when she had first started struggling with image training. But she was pretty sure that the dancer had been using either the balls of her feet or the heel, as opposed to her whole foot.
If only Ranthia had noted which it was, but instead she needed to experiment.
A short time later, Ranthia was mid-movement when her sandal’s straps suddenly snapped. Dexterity was her best stat, but that didn’t do much to help when the sole support for her weight was suddenly no longer there. She went down loudly; she went down hard.
And her chin happened to find the bottom of the wall.
All things considered, that seemed like a solid point to call it a night. Ranthia removed her ruined sandals—at least sandals were cheap—and made her way outside to seek food that she could carry back to her room. Her jaw hurt, it was late, and she was only grudgingly acknowledging the fact that she hadn’t eaten since that morning before she dropped by the nameless Pyronox [Healer]’s shop.
She was a long way away from her dream of incorporating dancing into her knife work.
But she still wasn’t deterred.