Chapter 19) Like a Sailor. Or, Think of it like a fresh canvas.

I turned my attention back to little Miss Swears A Lot as she began taking a few slow steps back toward the weapons in their alcoves while holding up her pants with one hand.

With a sigh, I started filling her in on what was going on. “All right, go ahead and grab something to defend yourself with, after all, you are going to need a weapon later on anyways, but for right now you might want to finish tying up your pants so they stay up. Swinging around something sharp with your britches down around your ankles sounds like a good way to get hurt.”

She went still for a moment and then began tying off the drawstring on her pants with another curse, fumbling at it since she kept looking up to see what I was up to.

I slowly drifted away, putting some distance between us. “What’s got you so riled up anyways?”

Her pants secured, she held her arms out in front of her at an angle towards the ground. “My ink, my piercing, even the ritual scars. They’re all gone. Some of those cost me a fortune, and the others…”

She shook her head sadly, looking a little lost. “A lot of those meant something. Memories, people…”

Turning around suddenly she grabbed the sword off of the wall and pulled it out of its sheath, holding it up between us as she examined the blade.

“I was told I had to unlock a weapon by fighting something, is that you?”

"No, but I can set you up with something. And I am sorry for your loss… even if I don’t understand marking yourself up like that. It all still meant something to you.”

She stared at me for a moment, then gave me a short nod before swinging the sword around in front of her. “Yeah. Let’s get on with it.”

I called up Panel and had it make a goblin out in the hallway, just around the corner and out of sight of Miss Swears A Lot. “All right, you got a little green guy out in the hall to fight. He’s armed.”

My new Trainee moved further out towards the middle of the room and then hesitated before she moved out to where she and the goblin could see each other. Then she hissed at me. “You said it’s armed? Like with a gun, or what?”

"Wooden club, about two and a half feet long."

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With that she stepped over to where she could see down the hallway and began running at the goblin, her sword held back and along the side of her leg. Like she had done something like this before.

She got close, let the goblin swing at her as she stepped to the side, then slashed it twice before putting the tip of the blade into its belly while grabbing the arm it had the club in. Almost as quickly as she stabbed it, she pulled the blade out and tugged on its arm to pull it over her outstretched foot and tripped it to the ground.

Then she began kicking it and screaming out swear words at it.

Some of the swearing involved someone called Julio and his fornicating deal of a lifetime.

I was getting the feeling she didn’t die quietly of something in her old age.

After a bit of the swearing slowed down, and some tears began running down her face, she turned back to me. “Another one.”

It seemed like she had a few things to work out. Things that needed to be settled before she could talk about them, and maybe not even then.

There were nine other types of critters, so I set one of each type up every twenty feet along the hallway with the skeleton last and the horned rabbit nearest to the open doorway to the [ Fire Starting ] room.

“Okay so-”

Before I could finish, she screamed and ran off toward the Squid Billy looking thing. “Oh well, you look like you have that well, ouch, in hand. I’ll get back to you in a bit.”

She had some diced Calamari going on there. Best to leave her to it then.

Since she seemed dead set on completing the full set of critters, I went ahead and made it a quest for her.

Meanwhile, I had another skill hallway to set up.

From one of the side wings in the equipment room I had set up, I started to make a ten foot high, five foot wide door, then started a corridor that went all the way up to the top of the Strata for some light that would run parallel to the swimming and jumping rooms, planning on having it take a left hand turn to rejoin the main hallway just before the fighting room.

Which was also the exit room, but I’m thinking I should call it the Arena or something like that.

Sparring room maybe? Dojo? The Ring? Maybe I could do a survey?

Before I got much further then putting in the doorway, I heard someone clearing her throat behind me.

It was Miss Swears A Lot, covered in splatters of red and blue blood, and some of the translucent yellow sap from the Shrubling. She’s also looking a lot calmer.

“I finished up all ten of those things. But all I unlocked was this sword. What do I do now?”

So, I imagined it would take her a little bit longer to kill off all ten of those things, and I had hoped to get a lot more done than just the door for my other hallway. Dissolving the stone must take more time than I thought.

How long had I been doing that before people started showing up? Digging out all the rooms, and the hallway? I guess time flies where you're busy, have no indications of how fast time is passing and are a floating ball of light.

Who would have guessed?

“Shoot, let me show you where you can find some soap and a towel. You’re going to have to hand scrub the clothes though, we don’t have any fresh outfits. You can unlock [ Swimming ] while you’re at it.”

So, if I’m going to get the squares to unlock the three Mage [ Starter ] spells, I’m not going to have time to set up anything fancy. So instead I put the ones for Mage Bolt, and Mage Guard up in the [ Jumping ] room, then work at putting in an eight foot tall five by five alcove in the climbing room up above the ten foot climbing wall, right in the middle

Drifting back to take a look at my work, I’m pretty glad to set that I could set it up on the regular red stone, the Strata, rather than the darker stone thirty feet down, the Firmament. But from the other Mage Fall square back in the Defunct dungeon being up on top of some stairs had clued me in that it would work.

“Are you done fornicating redecorating… light... guy?”

Little Miss Swears A Lot stood at the entrance of the room, her clothes damp and her hair roughly finger combed back.

“Yeah, now let’s talk about your options. And you can call me Tex.”