Marcel had gotten quite an assortment of skills during his weeks as a stable boy, and had even managed to raise their levels by quite a bit. Most of these skill gains simply came from tending after his basics tasks, and weren’t very exciting. No they were quite boring in fact and still took backbreaking labor in foul smelling company to even raise them at all.

His overall level had stubbornly remained at three for over a week now, but if this whole leveling thing was following conventional RPG rules that Marcel knew, then that wasn’t very surprising. After all he didn’t fight any dragons, goblins or the like to get any sort of xp.

No, he was a simple stable boy. And there was only so much xp one got from cleaning horseshit.

The worst thing about that was, that raising one's level was the only way to also gain in stats. With his [Stable Boy] class he was only gaining one stat point per level, but that was still something at least. Especially considering his meager stats to begin with.

So far most of the stats he had seen made sense to him, as they were quite similar to some of the games he was familiar with. In fact the whole process of leveling seemed quite intuitive to him.

The one new line gave him pause though.

“Shard detected.”

What was a shard? And why was it detected in him? Marcel didn’t like the sound of that.

He was ripped out of his thoughts when he suddenly stumbled against something hard. He looked up and saw a man standing in his way.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t even see you.”

“Oh that’s alright,” the man grinned. “We were about to stop you anyways.”

Marcel turned around and saw another two men standing behind him.

There was something distinct about the men that told him they weren’t there for joyful conversation. The typical telltale signs. They were all clad in black for a start. Their rough faces, criss crossed by scars, looked mean enough to make it hard for even a mother to love them. And then there was the glare of greed and recklessness in their eyes, mixed with a hint of desperation.

There was only one tactic Marcel knew against those men. His eyes fell to the small metallic object one of them was trying to conceal in their hand.

“Why are you holding a knife?” Marcel asked.

They paused, clearly not having expected that question. “What do you think?” The man in front of him answered for them.

“I don’t know to be honest. It is a fine night for some fishing, and I guess a knife like that would be perfect for taking them out fresh and nicely.”

“Fishing?” One of the men behind him said, now genuinely confused.

Marcel could see the brain cells in that group were somewhat unevenly distributed to the man in the front. He needed to capitalize on that.

“Yes, I mean look at the bright light we have.” Indeed every night in this world was relatively bright, since they had eight moons. “Although I wouldn’t advise you to fish in this canal here. Reeking body of water I tell you. Probably not so good for the stomach.”

“It is actually,” one of the goons behind him interjected. “My da died of food poisoning because he ate fish from the canal.”

“See!” Marcel said. “If you want I can show you a better spot. There’s a very clear lake in the woods north of here. Perfect for some salmon.”

The goon behind him nodded enthusiastically. “I love some salmon.”

“Salmon is the best,” his friend agreed.

“Do you have a piece of paper then? I could draw you the route.”

Both of them started rummaging through their pockets when the man in front of him snapped.

“Listen boy, are you playing stupid intentionally?” His voice was agitated. “This isn’t a knife for taking out fish. It’s a knife for taking the will to talk out of people.”

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“So you’re saying?” Marcel asked.

The man took a step towards him. “I’m saying that I’m starting to get tired of your talking.”

Marcel said goodbye to Plan A. Distraction had been an unrealistic hope anyways, but there was still his Plan B.

“Oh in that case let me save you guys the trouble.” Marcel rummaged through his pockets and let a small sack drop to the floor. “This is all the money I have. Note I didn’t just say on me, but all the money I have. Period.”

As he had discovered the hard way, the lifestyle of a stable boy was really that of a pauper.

One of the men standing back frowned at the small bag on the floor. The other one looked between Marcel and their leader, his two thoughts visibly fighting against each other to make sense of the situation.

The man at the front did something Marcel didn’t expect though. He laughed.

“This seems to be a misunderstanding. We’re not after that pathetic sum of money…”

“Ayy.”

“We are after your intestines. We’re trying to level.”

“What?” Oh how the tables of confusion turned.

“We kill you. We get experience. We get levels.” The man repeated slowly, as if trying to beat it into Marcel. “That is how the thieves class works.

His two companions seemed to have recovered as well, as suddenly all three of them had a weapon of some sort in their hands. Even if one of them just held a rolling pin, the new light of the situation started to dawn on Marcel.

“Oh.”

His palms started sweating, and he took a step back.

As if choreographed, the three men took a step towards him. Their eyes filled with greed. Their weapons flashing.

Suddenly a message appeared in front of Marcel.

“Recalibrating complete.”

“External blessing accepted.”

“Class switch initiated.”

For the second time that day Marcel was carried away by a vortex of white light while his head threatened to explode. This time though, it only lasted for the blink of an eye, and he fortunately didn’t lose consciousness.

“Congratulations, your class has changed to “Warrior of Rhea.”

“Your old skills have been reworked into new ones.”

“Please note that for balance reasons the number and rarity of your skills was kept, but the levels have been reset.”

“Warrior of Rhea:

A blessed warrior with dominion over the goddess domain. Unstoppable, determined and skilled in melee combat. This class comes with an extra +3 to all attributes.”

Marcel wasn’t sure what was happening, only that he felt different somehow. The world around him seemed more sharp, he felt more alert. His back didn’t feel tight anymore from working bent over anymore. But most importantly he felt stronger.

The leader of the goons rushed at him. Knife pointed straight at the chest.

For Marcel it was as if he was moving in slow motion though. He sidestepped the clumsy stab easily, and suddenly found himself behind his attacker. Following his instinct, he lowered his base and lashed out with his leg, cleanly sweeping the goon from his feet and placing an elbow to the ribs just as he was falling.

The man landed with a wheezing sound on the wet stone.

The other two goons looked at Marcel in shock, but to their credit didn’t hesitate. Displaying their professional cutthroatism they followed their leader's example and charged at Marcel.

He waved underneath a knife, and pivoted around the rolling pin. Coming up in the middle of the two attackers he quickly snapped a punch into one of the men's sternums, stopping him dead. Then he spun around and threw a kick at the man behind him. All that in the space of a few seconds and in one smooth motion. With a sickening crunch they dropped to the floor.

Marcel was even more surprised than his attackers. How was he moving so fast suddenly? He looked down at his palms. And where did he learn to move like that? In answer the energy inside of him was still circulating.

Suddenly a sharp pain exploded out from his stomach.

Marcel looked down to see a knife sticking out of it, connected by an arm to the manic grinning goon leader behind him.

“Told you we’re out for your guts” he hissed, bleeding a little out of his mouth.

Another soundless cry of pain erupted in his body as the man pulled out his knife again. Shock overrode the pain and Marcel stumbled a few steps forward. A wave of weakness overcame him as the world started spinning.

His vision flimmered and he felt the warmth of his own blood on him. A kick to the back sent him sprawling into the brown canal water nearby.

Marcel was losing consciousness when the brown wetness embraced him. He could feel the water entering his open mouth, filling his lungs. The cold hard embrace of death was dragging at him, siphoning off his life and leaving nothing but a husk.

“Aquatic Restoration activated.”

“Rhea’s Boost activated.”

Suddenly he was jostled wide awake. Feeling more alert than ever before. The water didn’t bother him anymore. He felt as if he was in his element.

“Minor Water Manipulation activated.”

With a mental command, he surged up through the water and broke the surface.

The three goons turned towards him in shock. Their eyes went wide as they saw Marcel suddenly standing on top of the canal's waters again. He was dripping in the brown ooze of the canal. A flash went in the distance, and he fixed them with the most terrifying smile he could muster.

All three of them ran.