The Outlands

Tess’s next day of school went relatively smoothly. No one came and yelled at her, so that was a plus, but that didn’t mean she didn’t receive some dirty glances when she and Ellie flirted during lunch. Aaron didn’t do anything except for once, when he stared at her expectantly from across the room when no one was looking.

In response, she held his gaze, and Isabella undid his belt buckle and the button on his pants. She was in the process of unzipping his fly when Aaron noticed, prompting Tess to wink and turn away as he began to fumble with his pants as surreptitiously as possible, hoping no one had seen.

So, she was soon back in The Outlands, heading to her usual meeting place with Alice and Eyfura. But, unlike normal, Alice and Eyfura weren’t there waiting for her. No one was, actually. Tess shrugged it off, assuming that perhaps Alice and Eyfura were in the middle of something that was causing them to be a little late.

While she waited, Tess prepared for the day ahead, putting on her gi and activating her wolf parts. Alice and Eyfura still hadn’t shown up, so she took out her phone and began to mess around on it, just whiling away the time until they showed up.

It took around ten minutes for Alice and Eyfura to show up. And when they did, they looked…somber. Eyfura walked over and took a seat next to Tess, while Alice sat down to the side.

“Um…is everything OK?” Tess asked. “You guys look kind of grim.”

Eyfura sighed, turning so she was facing Tess. “I…I’m resigning as one of your instructors.” She said sadly. “It’s not because of anything you did or anything, I’ve had a great time training you, I just…” She paused, struggling for a moment. “I’ve come to realize that I’m a poor teacher. I know that if I was better you could have beaten Ilmir. I know that, but I don’t know what to do better.

“It’s fine if I’m just training someone like Ilmir, I can get the basics into someone, it’s…well, you need better. You need fine technique, and that’s something that’s instinctual to me. And I feel like I’m stifling The Rumors’ teaching with my presence. Add that to the fact that you’re an Appointed and that we can’t afford to let your training be stunted, I can’t justify teaching you any longer.”

She reached in, giving Tess a hug. “I still want to drop in from time to time, but it’s not going to be more than once every couple of weeks. And Ilmir won’t be coming anymore either. I’m effectively changing the consequence of the bet to making her cool her head for a month…um, unless you would rather she train as a member of your party underneath you as originally planned.”

Tess returned the hug. “It’s fine. It’s going to be sad not seeing you, though, I’m going to miss you.”

“Me too.” Eyfura replied, giving Tess a little squeeze. “Next time you have some free time, let me know and I’ll introduce you to the rest of my family, OK?”

“Sure thing. So, um…what now?”

Eyfura broke the hug, ruffling Tess’s hair. “Now I go catch up on some of the duties I’ve been slacking on.” She stood up, heading over to the door. She stopped before she left, turning back to Tess. “And if you need anything, I’m just a call away, alright?” And with that she left, leaving Tess and Alice alone.

Tess looked to Alice. “So, it’s just us, then?”

Alice shook her head. “Ava wants to join us, but she’s going to be another few minutes.”

“Ava’s coming?” Tess asked.

“Yeah. When she heard Eyfura was going to quit she volunteered to take her place. Something about not wanting to leave you without one of The Titans overseeing your growth at this critical stage.”

“Yeah, that.” Ava said, announcing her presence by closing the door. “To tell you the truth, I’m probably best suited to be the one teaching you for now. You’re going to end up fulfilling a role remarkably similar to my own, so I can teach you the ins and outs of it.”

She turned to Alice. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have a curriculum thought up. I figured we could go over it, but I also don’t want to step on your toes, so you don’t have to use any of it if you don’t want to.”

Alice blinked. “I, uh, um…I’m honestly sort of winging it and teaching her things as they come up in dungeons, since we’re still getting her Skills rounded out. So, if you have some further structure then I’m open to it.”

Ava smiled, walking over and sitting down in a chair across from Alice and Tess. “Perfect. So, my first thought is that we’re going to dramatically cut down on dungeon time. We’ll still do some runs, but they’re mostly going to be to get Skills or levels, not to teach her things.

“Instead of just dungeons there are three main things I want to focus on. The first is getting her to learn about the wider world. She’s an Appointed now, it’s necessary for her to have at least a basic knowledge of the other planes and their cultures. The second is training and teaching her combat theory. I’ll be teaching her things in low stress situations, and she’ll practice what she’s learned on the two of us so we can be sure she’s got it exactly right.

“And the last is practical combat, which is going into dungeons with the express purpose of letting her use what she’s learned there or for levels and Skills. We’ll set up certain situations and she’ll have to adapt to them on the fly. We won’t be able to recreate every situation she’ll end up in, but we can at least pretend she’s in parties of differing compositions.”

“Actually,” Alice said, “my parents have given us permission for her to visit their manor whenever, and they recently got an Arena. I can talk to them and ask if we could use it for training.”

Ava’s eyes lit up. “Really? I’d love to try that out! I’ve always wanted to really see what they could do. In that case, I’ll have to rebalance the time investment I was thinking of so she gets levels and Skills at roughly the same pace as I was planning…” She trailed off, thinking that over. “Well, I can look that over later, today I was hoping to get her familiar with the culture here. Specifically gambling culture, since that’s the most immediately relevant to her.”

Alice frowned. “Are we…sure we should be throwing her into that right away? It can get pretty seedy and she’s not fully able to defend herself if someone gets frisky. I know we’ll be there but if she somehow gets separated from us…”

Ava waved a hand. “It’ll be fine, I’ll keep a close eye on her. Still, you have a valid point, so I have a bit of…insurance.” She reached into her bag, pulling out a couple of rings and then tossing them to Tess and Alice. “Just funnel some Mana into that bad boy and everyone else wearing a matching ring will know exactly where you are. If you get in trouble just put in some Mana then Alice and I will come running.”

Alice nodded. “That does make me feel a bit better, but…”

Ava sighed. “I know. Still, she has to jump into this sometime. She’s been tasked with reforming the system and she can’t do that if she doesn’t know anything about the system. I’d like for her to be able to think about her plans during training and see if she can’t figure something out.”

“I’m fine with it as long as you two are with me.” Tess said. “I trust you to keep me safe. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be immediately targeted just for going into a casino, right?”

“I suppose you two are right.” Alice admitted. “But we’re going to need disguises, right? I can’t imagine we’d get a good feel for the culture if we’re recognized and get immediately taken to the higher-stakes areas.”

“Yup.” Ava said, rummaging around in her bag. “I have just the thing, though.” She took out a core and a few coats, walking over and giving the core and a coat to Tess and one of the other coats to Alice. “Go ahead and absorb that core, it’s from a fox monster. Just swap out your ears and tail and that’ll make it that much harder for people to recognize you. The coats have recognition inhibitors too, but they’re not foolproof and I figured it was so easy for Tess to add another layer of anonymity that we might as well.”

Tess nodded. “Before I absorb this, there’s some…Class Crystal or something that can let me change my Class here in the guild, right? Fortune wants me to do that before I absorb this.”

“I brought one with me.” Ava said, taking a small but shiny crystal out of her bag. “Go ahead and change your Class, let us know when you’re done.”

She gave Tess the crystal, and Tess mentally willed it to change her Class to Artisan of Affliction.

Once she confirmed that her Class had changed, she absorbed the core she had been given.

She swapped Kemonomimi (Wolf) for the fox version, and another window popped up in front of her.

She nodded, waved away the window, handed the crystal back to Ava, and put on the coat. “Alright, I’m ready.” She said.

Ava put the crystal away and put on her coat as well. “I think we’ll be heading to the city’s largest casino, the Vermillion Arc. Does that sound alright to you, Alice?”

“Yeah.” Alice replied, relief in her voice. “As far as I know they’re about as up and up as these things get, so I don’t have too much of a problem with them.”

Ava smiled. “I wouldn’t throw her right into the seedy side of things immediately, she doesn’t even know how gambling works with the presence of stats, let alone how to spot a scam.”

She turned to Tess. “With that in mind, don’t win every single game. We’re going to have you play a few and I know you have the capability to always win, but you can’t. If you do, we’re going to get caught cheating and kicked out, and needless to say we don’t want that. Just win barely over half, alright? People won’t get suspicious then.”

Tess nodded. “I can handle that. So, we’re actually going to be gambling then?”

“Yeah. Not much of a better way to get a feel for gambling culture than to actually gamble. Things can get kind of complicated, so just listening to me tell you about it won’t be as good as actually experiencing it for yourself. We’re going to give you a pretty small sum to work with, just a gold coin, but it should be enough to do just about everything.”

And with that the group left the guild and began their walk through the city. Their trip took them to a part of the city that Tess had never been in before, where the buildings began to get bigger and flashier, and the people began to look seedier. It wasn’t that they looked directly harmful looking, just that there were a lot of drunkards, people hawking sketchy goods, and even a couple of people advertising places that Tess suspected were brothels of some sort.

Alice pulled Tess a little closer. “Just…stick close, alright? People aren’t going to try and mug you or pickpocket you on this street, but you could get scammed. Don’t make eye contact with anyone and don’t respond if they call to you.” She instructed.

“Alright, I won’t. But…is it really OK to have this sort of sketchy place in the city?”

“There kind of has to be one.” Ava said. “This is the city of freelancers, and, as the name implies, they tend not take kindly to people telling them what they can and can’t enjoy. If we tried to ban them outright, we’d lose a lot of support from people in the guild, and that would greatly destabilize things in the region. So, we figured we’d impose restrictions and then try and keep all the more…potentially scummy businesses in one area and police it heavier. For the most part it’s kept things from spilling over too much, but we haven’t had the means to do much more.”

They kept walking for a few more minutes before they stopped in front of a particularly elaborate building. It was big and colored red, with a large flashing sign that read “Vermillion Arc” adorning the front.

They went into the building, and the inside was…about what Tess had expected. Plush carpets, ornately designed counters and walls, flashing lights all over, and some sort of music going in the background. Ava led them over to a counter, where a lady greeted them with a smile. “Welcome to the Vermillion Arc!” She said. “How many tokens can I get for you?”

Ava placed three gold coins onto the counter. “Exchange these, please.”

The lady smoothly took the coins, reached down, deposited the coins, then dropped three stacks of small discs onto the counter. “There you are. Remember, tokens cannot be taken out of the establishment and can be exchanged for currency again at any time. Anything else I can do for you?”

“That’ll be all, thank you.” Ava said. She gave a stack of the tokens to Tess and one to Alice, taking the last for herself. She led the group away from the counter and into one of the more open areas. “We’ll start with some of the easiest stuff to grasp, and gradually work our way into the more complicated stuff, alright?”

Tess nodded. She felt a little wary about this all, but she reminded herself that, unless the machines were totally rigged, there was no risk for her, and she could focus on learning how everything worked. “Let’s go, I guess.”

Fighterman481

So, I didn't actually plan to introduce the Arena last chapter and then immediately reference it this chapter, it just sort of...happened?

And the whole instructor swap is something I have been planning for a while. It's something that allows for a better, well, change of pace and a more comprehensive education. The Rumors were never really contracted to be history and culture teachers, but that's something that's kind of really important to Tess's situation so...

Also, this isn't the last we'll be seeing of Ilmir and Eyfura. I have something else planned for that, but I'll have to wait until later on to really dig into it.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say. Next time we'll be looking at how gambling works, so look forward to it!

And, as always, thanks for reading!