We trailed after the Mage as he shambled his way free from the Baron's office. I slowed after passing through the door with Abby bunching up behind me, but I wanted some distance between us and the Mage. I wasn't afraid of the man, especially not in his current condition, but I also wanted to avoid a confrontation. Once the office door was closed, Abby shook, her body clearly conveying her pent up distress. This display of upset was what decided for me that we should focus on combat Skills rather than putting them off as I had initially planned. While the punishment had been disturbing, it had been no worse than one of my training sessions. I thought that it was likely the strain and the intense emotion of the conflict, which had been the deciding factor. With no one directly threatening her, she couldn't cloak herself in anger.
I was thinking of combat Skills and training for my apprentice when [Meditation] nudged me to Mason's presence in the hallway. The Baron’s combat specialist was relaxing against the wall as if waiting for a carriage. My thoughts slipped over to his training offer and his apprentice request.
"Mason, hey. I still haven't gotten word from the Guild. Still, we should test my apprentice as a potential for [Throwing]," I said before shaking my head and realizing my comment's utter inanity. It was then that the oddity of the grandmaster waiting in the hall instead of going into battle with Snowy, struck me.
Mason tilted his head up, as if trying to read the answer on the stone ceiling, but before he could respond, I continued my thought.
"Snowy is off to capture those mercenaries. Why aren't you with her?" I asked with a bit more heat than I had intended, almost accusingly so. I didn't realize how my approach would seem until Mason shifted away from the wall and dropped his hands ominously close to the daggers strapped to his vest. To be fair, anywhere near his torso would be within reach of a knife. He carried a lot of them.
I could hear Abby give out a cut-short squeak behind me, but I was too focused on the deadly man in front of me to turn and deal with my apprentice. I marked the moment he recognized that I realized my social blunder. His body language shifted from a tense monster waiting to pounce to his usual friendly, even casual, mask. I could see when he realized that I had simply been too quick to approach and that he had to force an intentional wave of relaxation through his body. I had seen the same behavior in combat trainers when growing up. I hadn't understood it the first few times seeing it, not until my father explained it to me.
For my father, combat was more than just what he did: it was what he was. He didn't suffer from combat fatigue or the strain of battle. He experienced the adrenaline rush of combat, but the crash that most had to endure never bothered him. He would become tired from fighting, but it never weighed on his mind. It was like a stressful day at work for a normal man: a strain, but no more.
Most others were not so lucky. A battle would eat at them - the sights, the sounds, the fear, pain, and stress. It would leave them jumpy and then exhausted in turn. Every fight, every life lost, every battle, it would slowly chip away at them. Some could recover with rest and silence, others would simply fade into a bottle and never escape. Mason had the look of someone who had survived and recovered. But, he still had the habits of a man that had been to war and killed far too many. Sudden noises or aggression could result in outbursts of violence.
The truth was that during the last of my training, I felt that same strain and knew that I might not be so lucky to recover from it. It was that strain and my unsuitability for combat, that had been a major factor in my change in focus to crafting Skills.
There was an awkward pause where I remained frozen, my mind knowing that I was just as safe as the moment before. However, my body still hummed with adrenaline, knowing that a predator was near and ready to pounce. While I hesitated, Mason shifted his hands away from his knives, one to his hip and the other free hanging.
"I didn't think o' the trouble you must be havin' with your Guild. With yer recent difficulties," he said while nodding casually, "I'm not lookin’ to train just anyone, I want an apprentice to pass on my know-how."
The casual tone and forced calm were enough to ease my pounding heart. I remembered how Mason had casually thrown his knives and the way they arced around obstacles to kill goblins behind cover. Given the way his Skills let him cut through stone even with a dull steel rod, he could have sliced me to pieces. Even [Meditation], would have only allowed me to watch my death coming, rather than be able to fight it off. Somehow, knowing I wasn’t a match for the man left me calmer.
I ignored Mason's response and returned to the content of my outburst, though, in a more respectful form.
"If you're back, why aren't you helping Snowy?" I asked again.
Returning to leaning against the wall, Mason flashed me his smile before he began to give my apprentice a considering look. I could understand his new interest. Before, she had simply been a prize to deliver to his Baron, now he was considering if she might have some hidden talent at his Skill.
Still eyeing my apprentice with a cold, calculating look, he answered, "I don't do so good in a battle. My [Throwing] is all about obstacles. I've seen others that can throw so fast that it'd put a Garven crossbow to shame. I infiltrate and assassinate, I don't do standin' and fightin'."
I could only nod at that. It made perfect sense, given the man's talents. The Baron had even called him his 'throat slitter,' not a title you would use for someone on the front lines. No, that was more my father's area of expertise.
Seeing my acceptance of his position, he stood again, his odd Skill making his movements stand out against the empty hallway. When he halted in front of my apprentice to consider her, he seemed to fade in importance again. This fading left me thinking about why [Meditation] was such an odd Skill. It nudged my awareness, let me know of the Skilled killer's presence, but the moment I knew he was there and began to keep him in mind, it stopped poking at me. I could see how [Self Awareness] connected to [Meditation] and how the two related. [Self Awareness] seemed to hide within the other Skill. However, I still had no real clue why [Meditation] did all of its seemingly disconnected effects. It seemed too broad, to all-encompassing a Skill. Slowing my perception of time, seeing my Skills inside the weird inner world, seeing mana, detecting alterations to my awareness, and so on. Whenever I thought I had a handle on the Skill, some new feature seemed to present itself.
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While I was woolgathering, my mind drifting away on considering Skills, Mason made an effort to creep out my apprentice. It wasn't until I turned to keep him in my view that I realized that Mason was drifting in and out of Abby's perception. She had been unsettled with the performance in the Baron's office. Having the grey-eyed killer who 'rescued' her seemingly stalk her, left her practically hanging off my arm in fright.
"Cut that out, Mason. Instead of frightening her for no reason, why don't we just test how well she can throw?" I said, my annoyance obviously bleeding into my words.
Strangely enough from my point of view, Mason flinched slightly at my words. It wasn't fear, he seemed nearly fearless, but I noticed he actively tried to fade from my perception after my rebuke. That subtle use of Skill was quickly contained, which led me to question how the man developed his stealth Skill in the first place. My mother developed her Skill because she always tried to be overlooked while she was spying or stealing. She wanted to fade into any role needed. What first drove Mason to disappear entirely? The extent of the two Skills, and likely the drive behind them, were vastly different.
If my mother needed to be a performer, she would sing and dance, but her Skill would leave her in everyone's mind as 'that minstrel.' She would exist but fade into the background. I thought that was part of her reason for acting out so energetically when not on a job - she could actually be without worrying about fading away. Was Mason trying to slip from everyone's attention at all times? The only time he hadn't faded away entirely was in the forest. Even when he was entering the city, he had been leaning on his Skill to fade in importance, using it similar to how my Mother's Skill worked. I hadn't noticed it then, but looking back on it, it seemed obvious.
"Right you are, let's see," Mason said, his smile back, even his grey eyes twinkling.
Marching along, Mason led us to the Baron's private training hall. However, I noticed my shadow - Sir Wincome - rolled his eyes before following us. The stick that had been shoved so far up his ass at our first meeting seemed to have become dislodged somewhat, but he was still performing his silent and observant act as he guarded us. Given my own asocial tendencies, I was fine with his stoic annoyance. Trailing into the hall behind Mason, we watched as he rummaged through the weapon racks and wooden cabinets bolted to the wall until he found a straw and cloth dummy mounted on a stick. Shoving the dummy upright into the sands, Mason marched back to us.
While he was setting up his firing range, I was lost in the fascination of trying to discern why I could easily watch the sands shift in his footprints. When I turned to watch him directly instead, I could feel a mental cloud actively messing with my perceptions. Someone without my practice could detect his movements by footsteps and the disturbance of air or smoke. Though given his expertise, I couldn't imagine he wasn't aware of this weakness—still, yet another thing for me to note down in my Skill dictionary.
"There, now, throw this," Mason said while holding a stack of slim daggers out to my apprentice.
Sometime during my distracted thoughts, something which had become worse since [Meditation] had grown in power, Abby had stopped shaking. She was no longer hanging off my arm and hiding behind me like a chick under her mother's wing. During the walk back from the Baron's study, she found her nerve and was standing straight, watching Mason's movements closely. I wasn't sure that she was catching his actions as well as I was or hadn't just been watching me, but at some point, she figured out how to see him. Confidently she reached out and grabbed Mason's daggers, the thin metal blades clicking together in her hand as she pulled them close. In Mason's large hands, the blades had seemed dainty, but in Abby's hands, they looked far larger. Bundling the collection into one tightly held fist, Abby pulled one from the group and held it in her left hand and reared back.
Idly, I noticed that Abby seemed to be left-handed, something I hadn't realized about my apprentice. I made a mental note to put my [Combat Awareness] Skill back into my training routine. I shouldn't have missed that vital bit of info. If I had been working on [Combat Awareness] and slowly improving it, I would have noticed.
With a lady-like grunt, Abby lobbed the blade. The weapon sailed past the dummy and bounced with a metallic clang off the far wall. Her efforts sent the knife flying past the mannequin, but I was sad to say, she was far more proficient than my own efforts would have been. Seeing the blush on her face, I didn't say anything, just watched as she grabbed the next knife and repeated her performance. Again, far from the target, but with a noticeable improvement over the last. Most of her effort went into throwing the knives with as much energy as she could, the blades on occasion whistling through the air as they flew beyond her target. Two of her attempts managed to hit the target, out of the two dozen she threw. The last few showed a marked reduction in speed, and she was huffing as she launched the final dagger.
"Not great. Not bad, but not great either," Mason said, his words startling both Abby and Sir Wincome. The part that had surprised me was Mason standing next to Abby while she threw, leaning in close to her to watch her performance. At one point, he had ducked low and studied the placement of her feet and how her hips had rotated as she threw as hard as she could. It had been more than mildly suggestive and disturbing, but I hadn't interfered since I recognized an inquisitive look; I wore one often enough.
"Still, talk to yer Guild, so I get a real apprentice. I'll teach her though, it might be good to have the Guild knowing my tricks. Not like there's a [Throwing] Guild to pass it on to," Mason said in his usual drawl as he rubbed his chin and stared at my apprentice. The return of his creepy considering grin, had Abby shifting away from Mason. When he failed to do anything but rub his chin and think, she relaxed from her reflexive recoil.
"[Throwing] would also work well with her Skill," I said with a cheeky look knowing that Mason wouldn't be able to resist that idea.
Raising his eyebrow inquisitively, he handed over another dagger to Abby. Flashing me a look of betrayal, she quickly pressed the flat of the blade to her hair, leaving a thin oily layer of Noble's Bane on the blade. At the sight, Mason gave a wolfish grin. The idea of the combination seemed to appeal to the man. Some men enjoyed combat, others the perfection of their abilities. Mason didn't seem to fall into either category, but he certainly appreciated talent and potential. Now that I wasn't worried about my apprentice knifing me in the dark - her rage being focused and reasonable - I could turn to her training as well as arming her.
It seemed to me that Mason was desperate to have his Skill recognized and remembered; for his name to be immortalized somehow. An odd dichotomy to his Skill that helped him fade from view.