After spending some time with my family, my birthday was over. The next morning, Mama and Papa walked with me down to the smithy to meet with the [Forgemaster] so we could discuss an official apprenticeship. We’d talked about it with him a few times over the last year, but now that I was an [Apprentice Blacksmith], we could make solid plans.

  Darius was grinning when we walked in, knowing that I had gotten my {System} the day before.

  “Well, little one, did you bring any news for me?” Darius asked.

  “Yessir, I'm here today to become your apprentice for real, now that I have the class to match.” I replied.

  “Let’s talk about the terms of her apprenticeship, [Forgemaster].” Papa chimed in.

  “Yes, of course. Can’t go swindling our best worker now, can we? What I was thinking was, now that she’d be gaining real experience from the work, we have her come by every day around midday, once she should be done helping the both of you with chores.”

  Darius continued, “I'll send her home before dark each night, so she’d get plenty of time to rest, though dinner’s gonna be something we gotta work around. You don’t live too far from here, right? Then she can hop back home for dinner, before returning to the shop for the last rounds of her work. Everything sound good so far?”

  Mama responded, “Everything sounds agreeable so far, but we should also hammer out what kind of payment she’ll be getting from the shop as well. So, any idea what you’d be willing to give her?”

  “Well, talk of compensation was rather expected, so I had an idea what it’d be, roughly. But before I get to the actual numbers, I'd like to know what your physical stats ended up at, so I know if you’re gonna be on the lower end of that range, or the higher.” Darius seemed eager to hear the answer to his question.

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  “Should I tell him, Mama?” I asked quietly.

  “Go ahead dear, it won’t hurt anything to let him know. You will be working with him for the foreseeable future after all.” Mama reassured me.

  “Alrighty then, my strength is at 7, and both my agility and dexterity are at 6.” I responded to Darius, a little nervous.

  “Wow, ahead of the curve there, huh, pipsqueak?” Darius chuckled to himself. “Well, with stats like those, there’s not really any reason not to accept you, and you’re most likely getting the higher ranges of pay while you’re working here.”

  “We don’t get a whole lotta work, but what we do get is important, so you won’t be getting any real experience actually making orders until we’ve got you through the basics and able to forge an item of your own from start to finish. Till that point, we'll be working on getting your stats up through hard work and exercise.”

  I was ecstatic about the whole thing. Just one question remained in my mind. “When do I start, Master?”

  “Now then, there’ll be none of that ‘Master’ crap in my forge. Now, you’ll be starting tomorrow, right after we all get back from our lunch breaks. Wait here a moment, I'll need to grab you some identification now that you’re my apprentice. Keeps you from being bothered too much, and lets you get into some places without a whole lot of questioning around the smithy. Though, you’ll only have the less important version, which means you need to be accompanied while you’re in those places.” Darius explained to me.

  “You’ll be getting basically nothing for the first few weeks to a month, but after that point, we’ll be paying you about 3 copper a week. Doing a good job will get that raised over time of course. So, what do you say? Think it’s a good enough deal for you?” Darius handed me a small token of a hammer and anvil, with a pin on the back to attach to some clothes.

  “Seems more than fair to us, so it’s a deal.” Mama said, before shaking on it.” We’ll head home now. Be sure to take good care of our daughter while she’s under your wing.”