Waking up somewhere other than his bedroom was a novel experience for Vittorio, as was being woken up by a man cursing loudly over a stubbed toe. Someone threw something at the man and told him to shut up, and for a while it seemed like a fight would break out. Thankfully it seemed the two knew each other and just weren't morning people.
Gloria was still asleep somehow so Vittorio took the time to consider what he would do today. He quickly decided to end the pact with {Strength of Weakness} as he did not foresee the need for combat abilities. That left two to choose from:
Attributes Class: Pactmaker Class Form a pact Status Enter a deal for power. Available pacts: 3 Log The Exchange
Prerequisite: Know the true value.
Mark: Your nose falls off. It regrows when the pact ends.
Price: 1 gold per day.
Benefits: Gain skills to buy and sell goods, often at another's expense.
Type: Non-combat
Traits: Assess value, attention to detail, deception
Activities: Buying and selling, inspect goods
The Singular Direction
Prerequisite: Progress.
Mark: Your pupils appear to be fixed, staring straight forwards.
Price: Learn something new every day. The first thing you learn each day does not provide experience.
Benefits: Spur yourself and others to act. Highly aggressive combat stance. Minor ability to alter your environment.
Type: Hybrid
Traits: Leadership: Force, Learning: Studying, Use weapon: (Small blade, Unarmed)
Activities: Combat, learn
Strength of Weakness
Prerequisite: Rebel against a supreme.
Mark: Bruise and bleed more easily and in greater quantities. This does not increase damage taken.
Price: Use the Harmlessness ability on a friend for a time. You will know when this has been achieved.
Benefits: Some stealth as well as buffs and offensive combat abilities focused on taking down single enemies.
Type: Combat
Traits: Deception, Reactions, Weapon use: (Club, Small blade, Spear, Unarmed)
Activities: Combat, Feign meekness or inferiority
While he could pay the price of {The Exchange} thanks to what he earned from Master Kahe for telling him about the class, it seemed like a waste. He also did not want to deal with his nose falling off. It seemed like such a strange mark. Looking ill as part of the deal with [Strength of Weakness} made sense, and he could guess at {The Singular Direction} being forwards, but what did buying and selling have to do with noses?
On a whim, though not without fear, he decided to try to get an answer. He began to Commune with {The Exchange}. Like when he had first reached out to {Strength of Weakness}, linking with the entity granted him greater insight in its nature. This was a thing of cold evaluation, a manipulator who attributed no worth to any but itself yet sought to hoard everything.
> Mortal mind the Exchange enters. Does it a deal wish to strike?
Possibly. I am confused about one of the terms of the deal you have offered.
> Confusion mortal minds the nature is. Clarity trade for is detrimental. {This} answer will give.
The mark of the pact is that my nose falls off. Why?
> Meaning words are lacking. {This} mind will consider. Sense sense lost and gained. System mark assigned. {This} trade accepts.
Vittorio could feel that those are the only answers he would get. He also couldn't help but notice that {The Exchange} had barely paused to 'consider his mind', which felt slightly insulting. As he tried to thank {The Exchange} and say goodbye, it ended the link. It seemed his intention to do so was good enough.
'Sense sense lost and gained' was not very clear to him. Even the intent behind what his mind interpreted as words was somewhat murky, but his best guess was that either his nose or his sense of smell would be replaced by one of the abilities gained? Not a definitive answer, but {The Exchange} was apparently content with it though the System had chosen the mark.
{The Singular Direction} demands he learn something and will eat some of his experience. That should be fine. Whether they stay in town and wait to travel with the [Class Guides] or head off on foot he should be able to learn. Gloria knew lots of stuff. Once more he reached out to The Place Which Is Not, and again he learned something of what he was communicating with. As he'd guessed, the direction mentioned was forward: It was a horse in galloping caring nought for whence it came or where it was going, but glorying in the run; A scholar burning tradition to make way for the future; A force which will not be denied.
> Mortal mind greeted is! {This} it expecting have been. It progress has made. {This} approves. Much remaining is.
This was different. Of the three, {The Singular Direction} felt the most like a person. About as much as a star is a glass of water, true, but at least you could see both at the same time. There was almost something akin to emotions in its intent.
I return your greetings. I would like to enter a pact, if that's alright?
> Pact formed be shall! Go onwards ever, mortal mind.
Vittorio returned to his senses and immediately had a look at his class screen.
Attributes Race: Human Class Susceptible to healing Status All healing affecting you is increased. Log Class: Pactmaker Passive skills Class Attributes Mentality, Personality Gain experience in the class when using Traits associated with an Attribute. Class Traits Adaptability, Leadership: Force, Learning: Experience, Learning: Studying, Resistance: Mental, Use weapon: (Small blade, Unarmed) The natural rating of traits are set at a minimum of Adequate. Gain experience in the class when using the Traits. Class Activities Combat, Learn, Negotiate Gain experience in the class when engaged in the Activities. Active skills Commune Open your mind to contact with those who dwell in The Place Which Is Not. Form a pact Enter a deal for power. Available pacts: 3 Pact Passive skills Lead by example
While you are engaged in an activity, allies behind you gain a boost to performing similar activities. The more similar the activity, the greater the boost.
Stolen novel; please report.
Master and pupil
You swiftly gain insight in the best way to teach or learn from another person. Increase non-class Traits slightly faster when tutored.
Active skills All at once Greatly increase the effect of Lead by Example for a short duration. You can use this ability every now and then. Passing of Ages
Age or erode worked materials with a touch. The more exposed to the elements the target is the greater the effect. You can use this ability often.
Singular Purpose
Enter a combat stance of constant movement and unrelenting aggression. Gain an intuitive understanding of the stance and its movements. Your balance, movement speed, and reactions are greatly improved while you are attacking. The effect lasts until you stop moving. You can enter the stance at any time.
Talents Generic Deals Occult Transformation Class: Pactmaker
He was interested to see that {The Singular Direction} also had a lot of group-oriented abilities. Its description had said it could spur others to act so he wasn't entirely surprised, but it was still interesting. Both the passive effects seemed pretty useful even if he wasn't expecting to be teaching anyone any time soon. Another thing that caught his attention was All as One: He got the feeling that it was a bit more fluid than the description made out: It would last longer for slow-paced things than fast-paced things, and the frequency would reflect what he did last time. Master Kahe had said that the descriptions of how often you could use abilities meant different things to different people, and like other ratings they were mostly relative - "every now and then" was more often than "rarely" but not as often as "often". For All as One he sensed that it means two to three times an hour.
He considered the last two skills. Passing of Ages suggested {The Singular Direction} might be forwards in time, maybe? Which seemed strange, as there was already the God of Time to oversee that. He could imagine uses for it like breaking traps or doors, but overall he wasn't too impressed. Just by the name Singular Purpose seemed at the heart of the entity, but he knew the System made the names so maybe not. He didn't know what a stance was or if it was enough on its own to fight with, but he'd certainly try it out.
He spent some time reading and re-reading the screen, desperately pushing off the growing anxiety in the back of his head. Eventually he had to face it, however: He didn't know what to do. His life had always been regimented by his parents, every hour of every day set and every action as instructed. Given the freedom to do whatever he wanted, he found that he didn't know how to want to do things.
Luckily an excellent teacher in coming up with things to do and then do them was sleeping close by. Once she was awake he was sure things would lighten up.
Half an hour later, the two sat in the inns common room. "So, do you want to leave today or should we wait for the carriage?", Gloria asked.
"I'm fine either way."
"Me too! So go ahead and decide. And stop staring at me."
"I told you, it's the new pact. I'm not actually staring, it just looks that way. And why do I have to decide?"
"You don't have to, but someone should and I asked. And please, just turn your head a bit or something."
Vittorio first lowered his head, then realised where his eyes were pointing. Blushing he turned to the side instead. "Fine. Carriage, maybe? I've never been in one."
"It does sound fancy, doesn't it? So then what do you want to do today?"
"I was kinda hoping you'd come up with something."
"I will! But surely there's something you want to do?"
"Well, I'd like to test my abilities. It's nice to have ones where I don't have to be fighting someone to use them."
Gloria nodded. "Yeah, we can try a bit of sparring before lunch, just to see what it's like."
"I've never really fought anyone before."
"We're not going to actually fight. Just try some things out."
Vittorio nodded and they soon headed out. First they went looking for worked materials to test Passing of Ages on. They found Benizios carving shop and he happily provided them with some offcut bits of wood he'd used as practice. Gloria really wanted to see what it'd do to worked stone, but people don't just leave that lying around so they eventually gave up. They asked some townsfolk to get directions to a stream outside town and went to experiment.
The first piece of wood Vittorio just held in the air. Before their eyes it discoloured and swelled, the clean lines of Benizios work getting smoothed out. It took less than a second for the pristine block of wood to look decades old. Testing it with their hands and a pocket knife they found it to be soft and brittle, and with some work they managed to pry off pieces of it.
Next, they did the same to a piece of wood submerged in water. It got a lot darker and swelled massively, the carvings all but indistinguishable from the rest of the wood. Vittorio easily broke it apart with his hands.
Finished with wood for now they moved on to metal. They'd decided to risk two copper pieces for this and went about it the same way. The one held in the air grew a thin layer of green patina which they could just scrape off - now worries there, it happened to older coins sometimes. Once again exposure to water greatly increased the effect, with the coin gaining a much thicker layer of patina as well as noticeably deforming. Ideally they'd wanted to test it on iron or steel to see if it was useful in a fight, but the blacksmith had been unhelpful.
Finally they took a piece of cloth from Glorias sewing kit and cut it in half. The part exposed to the air frayed and grew brittle, while the one submerged in water dissolved completely.
"Great!", Gloria said. "If we're ever fighting a mage underwater, you can really embarrass them."
"Assuming they don't have enchanted robes or something."
Gloria shook her head in mock outrage. "Don't be such a downer! Here I am, making plans, and you go poking holes in them. Do you even want to fight underwater? Anyway, let's move on to some sparring!"
They started out with Gloria taking a look at Vittorios form when punching, and after some critical looks she informed him that at least his thumb was in the right place. She then showed him a better way to stand and how to twist and lean in to the punch to give it more force and weight. Master and Pupil told Vittorio that they'd be best off with Gloria doing it and him copying her, so that's what they did. It didn't take long until he had the idea down and could do it in his own time. This was enough to pay the price of the pact, though it would of course take a lot more work to actually be competent.
After that it was time for what Vittorio had dreaded and Gloria had anticipated: Sparring. They were just going to aim to touch each other anywhere but the hands and arms, not actually punch, a game she'd played with other kids all her life. Gloria would be relying on that experience and her Fervent bonus. Vittorio, of course, would be entering his stance. As soon as he did his instincts began to scream at him how to move, but surprised at the sudden shift he didn't and immediately left the stance.
It took a few false starts but soon he was bouncing on his feet and shifting his arms. He rushed at Gloria who easily side-stepped, blocked his left arm with hers, and tapped him on the shoulder. Two steps past her he did a little hop, turned around, and moved back into offense and tried to follow the frantic instructions of his instincts. Left hand towards her lower ribs, right hand high towards her face, step to the right, left hand towards her belly while stepping forward, right arm block, right leg kick at her shin.
None of it worked. He might have been a bit faster than normal and his balance steady, but he was still hesitating, clearly showing what he was about to do, and simply not fully committing to the stance. Gloria was also blisteringly fast, her already stronger muscles and more competent movements further enhanced by her Happy buff increasing all her movement speeds. She blocked or avoided his every strike while finding little openings of her own to exploit - but mostly as part of blocking, as Vittorios constant movement made him hard to pin down.
Vittorio couldn't keep it up for long and had to break it off, drenched in sweat. He went over to the stream and splashed water in his face.
"That wasn't too bad", Gloria said, a bit out of breath.
"Not too bad? I'm exhausted!"
"Yeah, that's something you'll have to work on. I meant your fighting though, all that twisting and turning made it really hard to get a hit in. If we'd had weapons you'd be dead, sure, but with some practice I think it might work. You were pulling your punches and hesitating a lot though."
Vittorio looked up at her, water streaming down his face. "I don't think the stance is meant for sparring. It kept urging me to hurt you, like really hurt you. Going for the eyes and stuff. I had to keep trying to redirect it. But... yeah. Attacking someone will take some getting used to."
Gloria sat down next to him, very serious. "If you're going to be an adventurer, you do have to. There'll be monsters and beasts of course, but we may need to fight bandits and stuff eventually. Unless you've got another 'spirit' that lets you heal or something?"
"No, just the three. It's this, tricking people into thinking I'm not actually hurting them with {Strength of Weakness}, or throwing coins at them or something."
"Might be a good distraction for really, really stupid bandits. Ready for another round?"
They went back to sparring, pausing to chat whenever Vittorio couldn't keep it up any more. He did improve - not so much the hitting Gloria part, but he got out of the way of more and more of her counterattacks as the day went on. Around midday they decided it was getting too hot and returned to town.
It was some time later when, sitting on a bench on the town square, they spotted a dust cloud coming down the road at incredible speed. Before they had time to truly get concerned it began to slow, revealing itself to be a figure on horseback who arrived at the square and headed for the temple. The horse was a massive roan and seemed little worse for wear despite the breakneck speed. Climbing off of it was a woman with short-cropped black hair dressed in well-worn riding leathers, with sword and dagger on her hips and a shortbow and quiver on her back. Covering the leathers was a travel-stained tabard, all in black with a white eye on the chest. It seems there was a [Blessed Seeker] in Pogna after all.