Kaius suppressed a laugh as he watched the ratty urchin stare at him like he’d suggested the kid go kill a Guardian.

  “Did I stutter, Niles? Pick up your stick.”

  The boy leapt to obey, drawing a grin from Kaius. Teaching the kid a Skill was whimsical and reckless, but he didn’t care. For one, the risk was small. He’d had a thought on his mind for a while now — if the guild was already going through the effort of spreading the knowledge they had brought, he might as well add a little extra.

  Dawntown was proof of its benefit, and the energy he’d seen in the city made him certain that if it was widely available, more than a few people would seek to better themselves. A single urchin wouldn’t stand out so much in a wave like that.

  In the years to come people would need to fight, he was certain of it. To do that, they needed tools.

  Besides, he was curious — with the right tutorship, the initial level of a mastery skill could come quickly. What would happen if he taught the boy the forms of his own skill, removing the elements that interwove stances with casting? Purely the sword, but in a Vesryn style.

  At the very least it would be better than a basic sword mastery, that was for damned sure.

  When Niles stood and held his blade so tightly his knuckles went white, Kaius stepped forward. “Relax, kid. You’re holding it all wrong. And no, there are no strings attached. Sometimes you just get lucky.”

  Niles gulped and nodded.

  “Why do you want to learn the blade anyway?” Kaius asked. “To fight?”

  Kaius saw a flash of steel in Niles’s eyes, a familiar fire, and an even more familiar grief.

  “To be a delver, sir.” Niles said with flinty conviction. “It used to be just me and me da, but he didn’t make it out of my village. Me cousin’s a hunter — a good enough one that he got picked up by a ranger. He’s apprenticing under him, learning to hunt beasts now. I wanted to help him — I’m not afraid! I know pain, but… if I can’t even get a blasted Uncommon sword mastery… I don’t suppose I’m a good fit.”

  Kaius’s eyes softened. “Nonsense, kid. We’ll get you sorted. Now, bend your knees and loosen your grip.”

  Niles crouched — too low.

  “Not that much, and you want your grip firm but not tight. The muscles in your forearms and shoulders need to be ready but relaxed. Like this.”

  Swiftly dropping into a mid-guard, Kaius ignored Niles’s gasp as he demonstrated the correct two-handed grip and the posture he should hold. He looked at the boy; saw him struggle to mirror the motions with his crude stick. Frowning Kaius flicked his attention to his storage ring. Among the artifacts they’d found in Old Yon’s vault were a few plain pieces — simple Uncommons with solid but basic enchantments. Worth a pretty penny to most, but gutter trash to a team with second-tier artifacts and a treasury’s worth of platinum in their rings.

  Gauging the boy’s height and how much he’d likely grow, Kaius found a longsword that looked good enough and summoned it to hand.

  “Take this.”

  The boy gaped.

  “Are you deaf? I said take it.”

  Niles took the blade with shaking hands. It was a little long for him — he’d grow into it — but it had the balance and weight of a proper sword, important for anyone who wanted to learn the blade. He unsheathed it, staring at his dirty reflection in the gleaming steel.

  “Why?” Niles croaked.

  Kaius paused. Why did people always ask that? He wanted to, that was why. He drifted back to something Xenanra had said when he’d asked the same question.

  “A few months ago I met someone vastly more powerful than myself — so strong they may as well have been a god, and the gap between me and them dwarves the difference between the two of us. When I asked her why she had decided to help those weaker than her, she told me, ‘Why not?’. She said that it’s the privilege and the curse of the strong to be beholden to their own whims alone. I do this because I want to. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Niles didn’t seem to know how to react to that. The boy blinked, before he gave Kaius a shaky and uncertain nod.

  “Now, copy my stance and grip. Remember: stay ready but not tense — never tense.”

  “Why is that so important?” Niles asked, then looked ready to bite off his tongue for asking.

  “If you’re tense, your reactions are slow and your movements jerky. Both impede flow, and an impeded flow means you’ll struggle to transfer your weight behind your movements and strikes. Without weight transfer, you won’t be able to fight for shit.”

  The boy nodded seriously.

  “Remember: we start slow, and you practise slow. Speed comes with time. What matters now is being smooth and accurate.”

  Kaius lunged. The movement felt glacially slow and exaggerated, as if he was fighting through molasses. A necessary thing: any faster and the boy wouldn’t have followed.

  Slipping low under an imaginary high thrust, Kaius wove his blade to spear an opponent through the base of the jaw. He returned to stance a moment later.

  “Now you try. I’ll correct your mistakes and explain what this stance and this strike are for — and when and why you move.”

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  The boy gave it his best shot.

  He was raw; untrained. Credit where credit was due — the kid was snappy, and he remembered to stay relaxed.

  Kaius grinned: there was hope for the gutter rat yet.

  …

  A couple of hours later, as the sun dipped orange on the horizon, Niles let out a hoarse cry. Pivoting on his back foot, he drove the point of his weapon forward with full body weight — twisting just right to lance toward Kaius’s throat. The strike was clumsy, unrefined, and messy as hell — but it was a good strike compared to the flailing he’d been doing before.

  Behind them, Kenva hooted.

  “Yeah, get him!” she called, drawing a grin from Niles.

  Porkchop’s amused snorts and Kenva’s good-natured heckling had finally gotten the boy to relax after Kaius’s first hour smacking him back into a correct stance with his scabbard.

  Kaius moved agonisingly slowly, catching the blow with the strong of his sword.

  As he shifted it up, Niles stepped in, twisted through his hips again, and whipped the point of his blade towards Kaius’s cheek.

  A lethal blow — if Kaius had been a child. Thankfully, he hadn’t had to do too much to convince the boy he didn’t need to hold back — moving faster than niles could track was enough.

  Kaius flicked his scabbard, knocking away the blow as he stepped back.

  As Kaius disengaged, Niles froze, gasping. As his eyes unfocused — a tell tale sign of a system notification, his face paled. A moment passed; he looked up at Kaius, fear and worry plain on his features.

  Kaius rolled his eyes. “None of that, boy. I’m curious — what’d you get? What’s its rarity?”

  The boy’s worry turned to confusion. “You don’t already know?”

  Kaius shook his head. “No. My own skill blends the blade with magic. I stripped those parts out and left the raw sword forms. I’m curious.”

  Niles nodded, voice quivering. “The system called it Vesryn Blade Drills.”

  Pausing for a moment, the boy's next words were the barest whisper — as if uttering them would wake him from a dream. “It’s an Unusual.”

  He looked at Kaius as if he feared a trap would spring shut.

  Kaius clicked his tongue. “Drat. I was hoping it might be Unique.”

  Niles blinked. “What?”

  Ianmus snorted.

  Kaius ignored him and turned to his friend. “What?”

  “Stop torturing the boy. It’s plain he thinks he’s been knocked on the head and this is some last vision before he goes to meet his ancestors.”

  “I—” Niles started.

  “Oh, shush, Ianmus,” Kaius said. “He’ll do fine.”

  He turned back to Niles. “Anyway, it’s getting late, and we meant to be back at our inn hours ago. I’ll see you around, Niles. Do me a favour: if you know anyone else trying to become a delver and wanting to learn the blade, teach them that skill.”

  Niles blinked. “Wait… you don’t want me to keep it secret?”

  Kaius laughed. “If I wanted to keep it secret, I wouldn’t have told you in the first place.” He summoned a quill, and a slip of parchment from his ring, and scribbled a few notes. “Here. In a couple of days, go to the Guild and tell the receptionist Kaius said to look after you. Just promise you’ll keep pushing — and don’t forget that steel in your spine.”

  Kaius turned to his team and tilted his head down the alley. His friends got to their feet, saying their goodbyes to the boy, who still stood there, shocked.

  “Oh — one more thing,” Kaius said. “Keep what’s on that note to yourself for a few weeks. It’ll be common knowledge soon enough, but I don’t want you in danger if people think you have something valuable. Same with the skill you just learnt, actually. The Guild can help with spreading it — probably best you dont just go shouting it out on the street. I’ve learned first hand the trouble that can get you into.”

  As was becoming common, Niles only gave him a slow blink. “Why?” he called after them.

  Kaius turned back. “What’s the point of being strong if you can’t be kind?”

  A moment later, they were gone.

  As they punched deeper through the warren of alleys, Porkchop turned to him. “What’d you put on that note? I could tell you did something impulsive, but not what.”

  “I told him how to get Lesser Regeneration and Uncanny Dodge.”

  Ianmus stumbled. “That’s a bit of a risk, don’t you think? What if it puts the boy in danger?”

  “It won’t,” Kaius replied. “I’ve been thinking of sharing them with the Guild and asking them to spread them as wide as they can.”

  Kenva raised an eyebrow. “You are? That’s daring — not worried about the risk of them being used against you?”

  Kaius shook his head. He truly wasn’t.

  After all, it wasn’t all that hard to tell he had some kind of evasive and regeneration skill, and evolving both skills had changed them considerably. Plus, with their accrued advantages, he sincerely doubted that others would be able to catch up.

  Plus, it was the right thing to do. They were already doing the same with Honours and Aspects. Sure, nominally they were sharing what they knew about those because someone would let their existence slip at some point, and it would garner them some benefits if they did it first. Really, though, one of his biggest motivations was simply to improve people’s chances as the integration progressed step by step. People had to push and try, and the more people with the resources to go as far as their willpower allowed — without being hobbled by outside factors — the better.

  “Think about it” he said aloud. “They’re small, easy skills, but how many more delvers, from Rangers to Skirmishers to Vanguards to Mages, will feel a little more comfortable fighting at their level, or even higher, if they know they can avoid danger and survive it?”

  Without that survivability, how many would truly pursue Honours, even if they knew about them from the very start?

  Porkchop grunted in agreement. “Hells, how many more people would become delvers in the first place if they knew they could get access to those abilities? Two legacy skills alone are practically guaranteed to get someone an Uncommon class at least, if they put a bit of effort into capping them, and the rest of their skills.”

  Porkchop paused for a moment, thinking. “I’ll need to think of something else I can add. I know a fair few low-merge legacy skills that might be useful, no matter what style of fighting people lean toward.”

  “It is a fair assessment, one I can stand behind.” Kenva said, before frowning a moment later. “Unfortunately, I am oath-bound to share how to acquire my skills only with those who have joined my clan.”

  “The same for me,” Ianmus added with a grunt. “I can’t share the skills from Sunspire at all, and the three my father taught me can only be shared with direct relatives. Though I do see the wisdom in legacy skills being more accessible.”

  Kaius nodded, smiling. He knew it was sudden, and perhaps hasty, but he was glad that his team both understood his reasoning and agreed with him.

  “Come on. Let’s get back to the Dusty Stables. It’s been a long day.”

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