Sir Wincome acted instantly by pulling back into the room. The training hall was more like a small courtyard. The entrance had a recessed hallway of stone before meeting a metal barred wooden door. Since I had been sitting next to the weapon rack, I quickly grabbed my weapons and handed Snowy and Abby theirs when they approached. Standing inside the courtyard, Sir Wincome held his sword at the ready and prepared himself in a forward-leaning pose. Seeing his seemingly eager stance, I flashed back to how he moved during the fight in my house. The elite knight had charged with a blurring speed like an arrow in flight leaving holes in the wooden wall as he redirected himself. With stone walls and a single entrance, anyone moving through that door would have a difficult fight. Snowy stood next to me as we prepared to back up Sir Wincome, and I gestured Abby to hug the wall.

Looking to my apprentice, I whispered some hurried instructions, “If they move out of the hallway, strike once if you think you can then move back behind us. Don’t back yourself into the corner there and leave most of the fighting to us.”

Holding her dagger tight, the training shield still on her arm for some reason, she nodded as sweat flew from her head. When I noticed her wide-eyed look, I took a slow breath and used [Acting] to calm my tone.

“Sir Wincome is a capable warrior, and you know that we can handle ourselves as well. If you don’t have an opening, then pull back. I mostly want you out of direct sight, so you aren’t the focus of the attack,” I said, and I was happy to see that Abby took a deep, determined breath and faced the door.

The door we were watching thumped as someone tried to open it. The thick door absorbed most of the impact, but it was louder than would come from someone trying to open it and discovering that it had been locked. There was a pause, then a thin line of metal moved through the crack of the door and silently lifted the bar out of the lock plate. The motion was so sudden that it was already done by the time I had understood what was happening. The door was unlocked and swinging open. Idly, I noticed they unlocked the door and managed to time the door’s movement with the swing of the lock bar. The two turned together, and my [Trainer of Skills] hinted that this was to keep the bar from falling and blocking the moving door. I ignored my suddenly overactive Skill and hunched slightly in preparation.

Stepping through the door was a maid holding an oddly shaped hooked piece of metal that wasn’t a blade, but given the solid handle and the jagged shape, would serve just the same. The long plain dress distracted me for a moment, I was expecting warriors charging through. Still, the fact I was focused on her dress instead of her face helped me refocus and realize that it was my mother and not an attacker. Rising from my hunched posture, I tried to focus on her face. My growing smile shifted into confusion. All I found were angry eyes and a snarl to replace the usual smile and confusing blur of eyes that was familiar from my mother’s Skill.

“I don’t know who you are. But you picked the wrong person to replace,” she said before she started forward.

I was confused, but Sir Wincome was suffering from no such uncertainty. Blurring forward, he stepped slightly further to the left, so he had more room to swing his blade within the hallway’s tight confines. My mother met his charge with one of her own. She moved far slower than Sir Wincome, but her movements were smooth, acrobatic, and importantly took her over his attack. Instead of meeting his charge directly, her body shifted to Sir Wincome’s right. Before his blade could bisect her waist, she hopped, her body seeming to float over his sword. At the apex of her jump with her shoes barely sliding over the blade, she snapped her right leg out in a kick to the back of the knight’s shoulder. Not taking her seriously had caused Sir Wincome to overplay his hand. Given that my mother liked to play her games, I would bet she had been messing with the guards for weeks, convincing them her reputation was overblown.

The kick left both of them moving in an odd direction. Sir Wincome was falling down and forward in a line from his charge. My mother was spinning toward the upper corner of the stone hallway. My combat style was more in line with my mother’s: she specialized in single targets, sudden hit and run, and ambush tactics. She quickly demonstrated this as she whipped out her arm during her spin and slipped the hooked blade tool into a crack in the stone. Despite spinning while flying through the air and her target not being visible from her position, she was still unerringly able to hook the stone. With a grunt of effort, her arc shifted directions along the line of her new support. Swinging her body around, she silently landed with her body flat against the wall above the entrance.

Then she was gone.

Her ability to disappear at will was far less capable than Mason’s. Given a few seconds of effort, I would likely be able to find her. Most likely, she was still stuck like a fly to the wall. Movement, while hidden, was the easiest way to throw off stealth Skills of all kinds. Given the way Abby was jerking around in a frantic attempt to find her, I didn’t know if the others knew that fact. Sir Wincome was only incapacitated for a brief moment from the charge. He managed to recover from being tripped by scrambling forward wildly and pressing off of the door frame, but he was up and moving to defend us.

I was surprised by the attack, but now that I realized what happened, I could do something about it. Before this comedy could turn into a tragedy, I sent my Skill list to my mother.

Joshua Still’s Skills:

[Cold Resistance] 44

[Heat Resistance] 42

[Trap Making] 22

[Anatomy] 38

[Woodworking] 37

[Backstab] 33

[Acting] 22

[Teacher of Skills] 21

[Swordsmanship] 15

[Small Blades] 8

[Long Blades] 11

[Focused Cut] 2

[Memorization] 19

[Reading] 4

[Unarmed Combat] 14

[Combat Awareness] 4

[Fletching] 3

[Pottery] 5

[Smithing] 2

[Alchemy] 35

[Veil of Ice] 11

[Meditation] 15

For the first time in my life that I could remember, my mother utterly failed at something. Namely, she deactivated her active stealth Skill and fell off the wall where she’d been hiding. To my surprise, she had somehow moved to the other corner of the tunnel while invisible. Her climbing tool was stuck in a crevice with the toe of her shoe hooked over it. Given that she was hanging head down with a dagger clutched in one hand preparing to launch it at me, sending my Skill list had been just in the nick of time. The sudden failure of her Skill, her upside-down position, the awkward grip on the wall with one hand and a foot, preparing to launch a weapon at me, all combined to make her fall. Before Sir Wincome could stab her, I screamed.

“Wait! Wait. It’s a misunderstanding! Wait,” I was worried that Sir Wincome was going to ignore me when I saw the large muscles of his arms tense, but he halted his attack and moved to stand guard over Snowy.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, I had to resist the urge to snicker when Sir Wincome moved to protect Snowy. While she wasn’t a full head taller than the man, the proportions were still different enough that Sir Wincome seemed silly trying to protect the capable woman. Even though I knew it was his job to defend us, I couldn’t take him protecting Snowy seriously. Though, I did notice he wasn’t guarding me in the same way. Given the confusion, I rather thought the Baron would find it acceptable.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

My mother rose from the dirt, then carefully approached, her appearance distorting Skill unable to hide her tears from my view.

“Joshy? You. I felt you…then,” she choked out as she gripped her dagger hard.

“I’m sorry, mom. I was using [Meditation], and I figured out something then…” I said before glancing back at Sir Wincome and my apprentice. At the same time, Snowy’s eyebrow rose in unmistakable curiosity. At the look, I gave her a head shake to let her know we could talk about it later. This interaction seemed to be enough to convince my mom that I wasn’t a killer using an appearance modifying Skill to pretend to be her son.

Slipping her blade away, she approached me, glancing at Sir Wincome when he twitched but then ignored him to tuck herself into my arms and squeeze me. She quickly wiped away her tears then stepped back. My mother visibly gathered herself and focused away from her scare.

“They locked down the fort; those mercenaries you dealt with? They were in town. They’re fleeing now, and while the Baron’s team tries to run them down, the fort has been locked down. I was just coming to tell you when…then I thought they were in here,” she said in a stumbling repetitive rush.

There was an awkward moment where no one seemed sure what to do. Then, I watched my mother come back to herself and reform into the confident and somewhat manic woman I knew.

Facing Snowy, she said, “Your father wants you to ride out with the troops to kill the mercenaries. Capture at least an officer if you can.”

I had the urge to follow her into battle, but I reined in that response. I wasn’t a warrior, even if I could fight. I was a Skill Trainer, a teacher. I had to trust Snowy to handle herself. Given how she rushed out of the hall with my mom following her - to Sir Wincome’s obvious annoyance - she had no such compulsive need for my protection. It wasn’t clear why the mercenaries had returned. However, I could guess that they had been the source of the recent assassination attempts. But, either way, they would be useful. They could be captured, which would offer more evidence for the Baron to bring to the King. Or they could be killed in battle against Snowy, boosting her claim to the Barony through her combat talents. The other Barons and high nobles had been rabble-rousing against her since she was from the North. Her father was a relatively recently raised noble and didn’t fit within the old aristocratic families. Her claim to competency was combat. If she had been killed in the first mercenary attack, they could have used that against her father - maybe even have him removed because of his grief. But with Snowy surviving and heading to battle now, their efforts could turn this around to bolster her claim.

Assuming she survived of course.

While I stared after Snowy like a love-sick teen as the two hurried off to deal with the latest problem, I missed the entrance of the Baron’s mage. But he made his presence clear when he stepped around Sir Wincome.

“You’re going to get yourself killed playing with shit you don’t understand, boy!” the mage said as he approached, his oddly young face flushed red as his long grey and white hair framed it like a mane.

Blinking in confusion, I gripped my short blades tighter, unconsciously raising them to defend myself. Seeing that the mage was unconcerned by my actions and wasn’t armed with his staff, I resheathed my weapons.

Crossing my arms, I tried to convey my disregard for the man, but I was still off-balance from the radical shifts the day had taken.

“You’re as loud as a damn town crier! Anything with a connection to the Akashik just heard that fuck up of yours!” He shouted, his arms flailing and spit nearly flying from his face.

Despite the seemingly palpable anger, he hadn’t touched me or cast a spell. The trickle of mana that was regularly swirling into people seemed to instead be held still by the man. He wasn’t going to cast a spell, and he wanted me to know it.

There was something fake about his anger and outrage. Something my [Acting] Skill was hinting was off about his performance. He was upset, but he wasn’t angry, or he was, but not at me. I could see it, but I couldn’t tell why. I didn’t need to understand why he was lying about his anger - only know that he was. But why was he trying to fake his upset?

“You can tell the Mage’s Guild that I’ll explore any damn Skill I want and that they can shove it up their ass if they don’t like it,” I said with a snarl.

I was finally done with the Mage Guild’s attitude and their slowly expanding stranglehold on the kingdom’s economy. For a brief moment, one so short I almost thought I missed it, there was a smile of smug satisfaction.

I couldn’t keep my sudden understanding to myself; it leaked out before I could muzzle myself. “You want me at odds with the Mage’s Guild. You want me learning magic,” I said, my eyes flicking between his as he flinched.

My statement, and his failure to refute it was not missed by either Abby or Sir Wincome. Sir Wincome’s silent stance of pretend boredom suddenly snapped into tension. He regarded both of us silently to see how things played out. I’d always known that Sir Wincome was spying on me and reporting to the Baron, but now he wasn’t even bothering to hide it. Abby had a similar, if less extreme reaction, though she was instead gawking at me.

“You’re learning magic?” she asked with a clear yearning on her face.

“No! Uh, oh, damn it!” the Mage said. His flushed cheeks returning to their normal tone as his pupils shrunk back to their standard size. The clue that [Acting] kept throwing at me was the disconnect with his controlled breathing and lack of a skin jittering pulse that should have been visible while he was so close. The pupils and flush should have screamed that he was ready for battle. The other signals were the performance of a confident manipulator trying to move another piece on the board.

“Nothing goes right with you. Damn it,” Mage Fordson said as he stomped back toward the door.

In a flash of insight, I realized where else his manipulation had failed.

“I hope the swords and the crossbows weren’t that expensive,” I said to his retreating back and watched for the flinch. It was there. It had been a guess but his flinch was all the confirmation I needed. I was honestly surprised that it worked, few make it to his age - whatever it was - while dealing with the Mage’s Guild without learning to manage their responses. It was only how his ploy failed that threw off his performance. When he turned around, I could see the calculating look in his eyes, [Acting] screaming in ways I’d never experienced before.

“Those four farm boys you sent to kill me and Snowy - Alexis. The swords and crossbows,” I said, putting all the confidence I could into my statement. However, I tripped over Snowy’s name, the nickname having become second nature by now.

We had Sir Wincome’s evident attention. Interestingly, Mage Fordson was holding himself so rigid that I couldn’t tell what he was feeling through [Acting], only that his reaction was entirely unnatural. He was [Acting] controlled, and not trying to convey a specific feeling. In another odd sense of insight, I realized he was using the [Acting] Skill and not some other similar Skill. Poorly, but he was using the same Skill.

With the three of us staring at him, I could see the moment he realized he wasn’t going to play this off. With Sir Wincome, especially, he was running a severe risk. The Baron would hear about this, and Mage Fordson might not make it out of that discussion alive.

“Alright. I sent the four men. I was ordered to kill you by the Mage’s Guild. They weren’t supposed to hurt the Baron’s daughter,” the white-haired man said as his shoulders slumped. His hold on [Acting] faded away at his admission though it was a subtle thing.

Despite his admission, it didn’t make sense. Oh, it explained why the mercenaries had seemed far more capable than the boys he sent. The combination had never made sense to me, but knowing that the Mage sent the four and the Baron’s rival sent the others made sense. The two events were only connected by the situation - us being in the woods and away from others. But even then, the Mage’s ‘attack’ didn’t make sense.

Blinking suddenly in understanding, I stared as I asked, “They were supposed to die, weren’t they? You didn’t want me dead. You wanted me to think the Mages were attacking me.”

Frowning at me, the mage snarled, “pissing people off is like a damn art form for you, isn’t it?” before he turned and stomped off.

Abby faced me as Sir Wincome watched the mage stomp away, then my waif-like apprentice asked, “What’s going on?”

I didn’t answer, just shook my head, as Sir Wincome pulled free a small book from his belt and an alchemist’s ink stick. He quickly jotted in his book while staring at the retreating Mage, and I had the feeling that the Baron was being informed about the Mage’s actions. Exhausted by the sudden shift in events, I could only shake my head and move to gather my stuff. I had planned to work with Abby on the basics of Alchemy - which was cleaning - but I wouldn’t be able to return to the shop and my home knowing that Snowy was fighting. We would eat here tonight and likely bunk in my office.