When I woke up the day after I got back it was a bit awkward. Me and Anna were twisted into one another, and I didn’t have the heart to wake her up. She had somehow found her head on top of one arm but face down her body on top of mine and her legs under one leg and on top of the other. Her other arm was wrapped lightly around my head. My arm was draped over her back. We were tangled up together on her bed, snug as a bug in a rug. I was still in my ripped-up clothes and could feel where she rubbed against me.

She fit solidly against me, like a well-made tabletop. We were proportioned almost perfectly, and it was quite the thing. Humans had roughly equal legs to torso lengths, kobold torsos were a bit longer, with our arms and legs being the same length, and yet even with the differences, we fit. It also meant that my hand didn’t reach too far down, resting on her low back, while she rested just below my shoulder the top of her head where her crown of flowers rested atop her head, through some method I can only assume is magic, close to my noise.

I was thinking about how to get out of the tangle of limbs but couldn’t puzzle a way out that wouldn’t wake her up, so I just went back to sleep. She was warm, and I could sleep a little more.

She had gone around that morning beet red whenever she looked at me. It was adorable, I would catch her looking at me, and I would look back, and she would act like she hadn’t been staring at me.

I got my work done, less than quickly. I wouldn’t say I showed off per say, but if she wanted a look, I certainly wasn’t going to let her miss out. It made her flush even deeper, and I’m not sure if it’s because she liked it or felt embarrassed, or a little of both but she ends up going for water after gathering some of the plants and we take a break early.

While I relax on the chair, I get to asking her about some of the intricacies of [Status] and it takes a bit and the slate to figure it out.

As it turns out, the value for mana is a representation of the maximum effective mana I can move and cast in a day, and the absolute maximum I can use to cast a singular spell. It’s apparently prescribed by stats with a little wiggle room.

She drew out the box with some of the words, but mostly just the numbers and explained it to me, taking on her teaching voice.

“This” she pointed at what I remember being proficiency and sounds like ‘Prove-fec-E-ant-cy.’

“Get from,” she taped the area where level was, then proceeded to draw out numbers with a second number beside it in a table.

Lehval

Provefeceantcy

230-

9

185-

8

145-

7

110-

6

80-109

5

55-79

4

35-54

3

20-34

2

10-19

1

1-9

0

The left side was the levels, and the right a bonus; as she started going up and up, it occurred to me just how weak I was.

I don’t even know what the 5th tier kobold trait was, are there seriously 9? Is 225 the maximum?

I asked her, and she shook her head at my question, “No, are higher, little.” she said with her fingers making a tiny gesture.

I looked at the numbers and found a pattern. My brain projected the idea into my head. It was math but basic math, the kind that even I could do. The proficiency multiplied by 5 equalled the levels required to reach the next rank. To reach rank two, which corresponded to a proficiency of two you would need 10 levels, then fifteen then twenty and so on.

Is it a pattern or a coincidence? I decided to ask her, “Why, ‘five’?” I said with help from my fingers.

She shrugged, “No people, ‘know.’ Why fire warm? Just is.” She told me.

I wonder if Skipseo’s library has an answer, It’s a bit late… I can go tomorrow I guess; I don’t have anywhere to put them, I don’t think, and even this far in the future, I won’t let Skipseo haunt me. Or worse… Haunt me and teach me math.

I had looked out for the time, and that caught Anna’s attention and got her to remember something. She ended up running off towards New Moarn. I got back to work, and we finished our day with a bit of pizazz. A soup with some nice flavors, some little onion things that tasted nice. 8/10, Anna was way better at cooking than I was.

***

I woke up the next day in my own bed. Today was the day I could get my fight on. Anna got out in time to get some work in painting. I stole glances while I cooked some meal for breakfast. I got to doing my work quickly. Hoe and scythe, pots and keg and I got done quickly and went to get myself ready when Anna snared me.

“Need you, follow soon. ‘Cut cloths.’”

And so, I followed Anna into town and met the man whose work I had worn when I got attacked. He was rather professional, if anything, he seemed more confused about how my clothes had gotten ruined than disappointed on their state. He only flinched for a second when I entered, and he caught my eyes before addressing Anna and getting on with it. He ended up passing me a new set of clothes, a green smock that fit me well enough, and I got to wear it while he tailored them and got real measurements.

I had never figured out how Anna got them, but it turns out he just guessed based on my height.

“He good. Best.” She told me, and I had to agree.

He sketched out a picture of me and appended measurements and seemed to realize I had a different shape and gestured for me to get a few more measurements. He got everything done, and Anna brought me to another shop.

We met a soap maker, the slate carver, the butcher who was way too good, and twenty other people as we went through the town. Most of the people around us didn’t even notice my eyes, more so my height and ears.

I kept checking and squinting. Making sure I didn’t get jumped by armed people the whole time we walked the city’s streets. We spent hours walking and peaking into shops, and I made sure to remember how to get around, plotting the best route to run. But I never needed to, and we wandered back home with some stuff for the pantry, a slate pen and other assorted goods, and the now tailored green smock. It was too late to go out when Anna and me got home, and she gave me one last gift.

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“Book, help with words.” She said and handed to me a book.

It was bound in leather with stitched parchment pages. I picked up the book like it was my own babe, opening its cover and looking through it. The words were confusing but there were pictures in the book. It was a copy of quite a few holy scriptures, put together in one covering. Hundreds of pages of prayers that I could learn to read, with each passage marked familiarly to those I remembered.

It was a gift that hit close to home and that would cost a fortune.

I managed to vocalize through the shock of holding something worth more than its weight that gold, “Mine?” shock evident in my voice.

“Mhm, yours. Learn words than keep.” She said it so casually. Like she had just bought it with pocket change. I held the book down low in one hand and brought her over into a hug with the other hand. I said all I could, “Thank you.”

She hugged me back, and that’s all I needed. We ate dinner, we relaxed. I read through the book near Anna while she painted, sometimes calling out words that I think I knew, and she would echo the correct word back.

We did it for the rest of the night.

I can go out tomorrow.

***

I started my day like most others, and at midday, I came to Anna with a question, one that I had considered for each day since I had cast my first spell.

“What is hit point?” I asked her. She thought for a second, lowering her mug and tapping her face for a few seconds.

“It’s how much hurt you can get.” She decided. But her answer was not what I meant to ask.

“No, no. ‘One.’” I asked her. She blinked at that, and her face got highly confused face before scratching her head.

“Slate. Need.” She told me, and I went and retrieved it. I could tell that I was probably closing in on a level from the work, my body felt almost stronger, like it was stretching, warming up. It would probably take another half of a month to get it.

I moved the slate to the porch and passed her the slate pen. The following hour and a half of explaining gave both of us a headache, explaining and re-explaining until she was sure I understood.

Incidentally, a single ‘Hit point’ was the amount of damage a level 6 [Street urchin] with an improvised knife would do on average each time they stabbed you.

I had almost died to just one crossbow bolt, oh sure, I had gotten hit by three more, but I was almost gone by that point, it was hard to stand and breathe when the bolt filled me with blood.

So why? Why did the spell tell you how many times you could get stabbed by a level 6 [Street urchin]? Why was that the benchmark?

“First mage [Street urchin].” She answered. That was a story I had to hear, so she told me the story. We ate late that day; we got sidetracked by sharing stories. We shared more over dinner, and I totally forgot to pick up the hearthstone.

I slapped my forehead when I remembered that. Anna just looked over at me as I read the book in her study.

“What?” She asked me.

“Keep ‘forgetting,’ get stuff, but no space for a book, keep ‘forgetting’ stone,” I told her. With forgetting replaced with a brain falling-out gesture.

She looked at me confused, looking around at the free space, not getting it.

“Much space for book.” She said with a little laugh until she saw me shaking my head.

“Many books? Many, many?” She asked, confused. I nodded to that.

“Cart’s many books,” I told her, “But get stone, just ‘forget.’” She looked shocked at that, I could see her estimating how many books I was trying to tell her I meant to bring into her house and took a deep breath.

“Fill your room?” She asked me.

I thought about that for a moment, would Skipseo’s library fit in my room? It was a little bigger than the room, but they were on shelves. I closed my eyes and started tapping my head, concentrating on the number of books. It would be a few carts worth, ten shelves, ten carts; less if they were larger carts. I arranged the carts in the room sans wheels. They would fit, but it would be cramped.

“Hmm, yes, but no space for bed,” I told her with a shrug. It would be cramped even if we moved as many as we could fit into her study. They wouldn’t fit with a bed, although with a little renovation, the room would make an excellent place to store the books, it just needed more roofing.

“Also, no money for cart, no money for room. Skipseo haunt me if books ruined.” I told her.

She went to say something and then stopped, pausing for a moment, mouth slightly ajar before she slapped her own forehead. She breathed deeply before looking back at me.

“Forgot can pay, worth.” She told me, continuing with, “You get work done, more sales from your help, more time, should have paid, forgot.”

I blinked at her, confused, my poor half fox half-human brain spinning up to put together the idea.

“But, rent and food?” I said, somewhat limply.

She snorted, holding up two fingers, “‘two,' just me and you. Money split, plant pay good. Can put cost together than give money from rest.”

“More than food and room?” I asked, like a brainless moron who couldn’t perform the simple math of we can split it equally after our costs.

When I had worked before, it had been really simple. We worked for a lord who owned land, we worked it and had to pay the lord a tithe. If you fell in dept, regardless of if it was your fault or just the lord being a dickhead, you had to pay it off. But you had nowhere to live, so the lord would give housing and food for work, except they gave a price on it. Sure, you could make some money, but it would be the better part of your life before you could even think about putting a dent in it, and dept passed from parent to kid. My mom inherited my grandfather’s debt when he died, and she had never lived outside a workhouse. I had a debt of ninety gold pieces left of the two hundred and sixty gold my family had started with.

I suppose that’s gone too… or it's just lost to the sands of time, forgotten in some ledger somewhere. I wonder if the humans still do that, rack up prices on an indenture, most probably do, it wouldn’t surprise me. The lord that held my debt couldn’t even keep up a ponzi scheme, which says a lot about the competence of lords, if they were competent, they would be more than a barely landed noble.

She just nodded, unaware of my concern, “Much money, eight for us.” She told me.

“Eight ‘what’?” I asked, seeking clarification. Eight coppers would be weak, but eight silver would be nice.

Annabeth nodded and reached over into a pouch on her desk, pulling out a coin. It glimmered in the lamp light, a single gold piece.

Eight gold, how much money are those flowers and herbs worth?

***

I woke up the next day still goggling at the money Annabeth made a week. No wonder she can just buy a book, she could pay for any book with a week’s worth of pay.

I woke and went about my day, me and Anna talked and worked, and after we were done, we went to the city, to the most dangerous place in the city, a place of evil, of debauchery.

I looked at her like she was a mad woman as we stood just out of the road, “A coin house?” I asked her.

She nodded. We stood outside a merchants guild, a place where merchants gathered and deposited gold, safe from bandits on the road, or bad roads where the gold could become unrecoverable. A place to receive loans and record debts, and plan.

We entered the building, it was a suspiciously normal building, wood top with a stone foot, plaster keeping the wind out and solid shutters. It was also fancy, it had a doorknob, which was the first one I had seen here, most places just had a latch or cord to keep their doors closed. It was swept clean, and not just normal clean, but skill clean.

The floorboards looked off until you realized that there was nothing but wood there. The whole room, in fact, looked too clean. It was somewhat unnerving, but I followed behind Anna, hiding behind a woman that was literally too short to hide me. There were a few people off to the side at a bar, including what looked like at a glance a child, which seemed strange, but merchants were a strange sort of people.

What was the saying? When in Rurer do as the Rurers do? Although considering Rurer collapsed and is a deserted wasteland, I don’t know if I should. I’m sure it's fine; oh god they're drinking an ale.

I decided to put it out of my mind, I have to keep myself focused on the present task.

No procrastinating, I’m already here, I can’t exactly run away. Well, I could, but Anna might be cross with me, and I can't have her being angry with me, I don’t think I could take that.

Anna starts conversing with the man at the front desk, and I can pick up more words than I could last time. About one in five, enough to get the gist.

She starts with something about money and giving it to me, something about an account and a gesture to me. Which I suppose means she is asking to give me money. The man nods and motions that he needs to go somewhere and that he will be back, presumably soon.

The stalwart woman before me turned to me, “Make you account, keep coin in,” she explained.

Wait… Making an account? Like for me?

That made me nervous, it was strange. I wasn’t a merchant; I only technically owned a few things, and none of them were goods I would trade. So why was I getting an account?

“I ok to have?” I asked her, to which she nodded.

We didn’t have to wait long for the person, likely a [Clerk], to come back, he held an ink pot, pen, and a few sheets of parchment. She and I moved all the way up to the desk, and he handed the first parchment for Anna to sign. She read through it quickly, bobbing her head a little as she read, then reached for the quill and signed it. He then pushed the parchment to me, and I parsed the paper. It was limited, not much in the way of text, and it asked for my name, race and age to identify me, I can deposit funds, and the guild can use a percentage of it to lend and make money, I can invest… Oh, I can make an account because I’m technically an investor.

Let’s see, I need an initial deposit of five gold coins… presumably, Anna is paying that from my pay. Ok, I’m fairly sure I’m ok to sign this.

I put down my information and signed the parchment before handing it back. The man spoke two skills, “[Verify text], [Quick dry].” And then looked over the two pages, Anna’s were fine, but he read mine and stopped at the top of the page.

He looked at me, then down at the page, then back and forth once more. He looked like he wanted to sweat a little bit. But nodded a little and put the pages behind the counter, and noted something down.

Anna tapped me on the shoulder, taking me away from watching the [Clerc], “You have twenty-four, want?” My brain almost tripped as it contemplated those words, I blinked at her.

“Tw-twenty-four? I uh… Yes, but small.” I managed to get out, and she told the [Clerc] to give a bit of my coin, and in almost no time, I held more money than I had ever had in my life. It was in a bag, a tiny purse. I clutched the surprisingly heavy sac. And looked at Anna.

“What do? Many coins.” I asked her. She giggled a little, which took a little of my nerves away. It gave me enough gusto to do things like breathe.

“Get stuff. What want?” She told me, smiling at my nerves and nudging me in the ribs.

I looked up at the man running the desk, “We good to go?”

“Yes,” he said, eyeing me. He met my eyes, and I could see him flinch, just a tiny little bit, but he did. I took that as my time to go turned around and started walking out slowly so Anna could turn and catch up. She did it in short order.

“You going to buy?” She asked.

“Hmm, not today. Maybe tomorrow.” I told her. I had no idea what I wanted to buy. We went home, or rather, we made our way home with Anna pulling me around to see stuff and showing me things I could buy. Sometimes she would stop and talk with someone she knew, and I would sit back with my eyes closed trying to parse the words. Most of them were just casual conversations.

We got home, got down to making dinner, ate and drank, and I fell asleep and dreamt of coins jingling.

***

I woke up the next day and slapped my cheeks.

I’m procrastinating, I need to go. I owe the two of them more than just letting life catch me up. They deserve a burial. No more procrastinating, Saphine it's go time.

I hopped out of bed and started to comb my hair.

Today’s the day, no more procrastination.