An Unwavering Craftsman

There was some amount of commotion by the time Damien reached the front of the queue.

At first, he'd considered the effects of [Divine Punishment] to be an immense disappointment; it hadn't had any visible effect whatsoever. Then the violent man had tripped over his own feet, almost as if he'd forgotten how to walk. The crying girl had moved to help, then looked somewhat confused, staring at her own hand. The man seemed to take exception to the fact she was ignoring him, rather than helping him up off the floor, and, after pulling himself back up, had slapped her again to get her attention.

That had resulted in the girl looking even more confused while her father shook his hand, wincing.

Damien had watched in fascination, having no clue what was going on. Was the skill having a long-term effect, punishing him each time he tried to harm his daughter? Was he feeling her pain?

The guards ignored them at first; he wasn't the first parent to take exception to the class of a child, and he wouldn't be the last. Normally, such people would wait until they returned home to engage in physical violence, but despite him acting more publicly, his actions hadn't constituted a crime.

When they did step in, it was for disturbing the peace, rather than violence. The man was getting progressively more irate, screaming and shouting at his daughter, but he no longer seemed able to harm her. After talking to the frightened girl, the guards had, for some reason, ushered the pair back towards the appraisers.

A few minutes later, and Damien found himself no longer the sole focus of the assorted guests as ripples spread throughout the congregated officials. A guard had run off to fetch the priestesses of Murill and Gaia, even, and they'd entered one of the appraisal tents and not emerged since.

"What's going on over there?" he asked the guard at the front of the queue, unable to resist.

"Sorry, but that's a private matter," replied the guard. "Tent number three is available. Please head over for your inspection."

Damien nodded and headed through the gap in the barrier, leaving the ritual circle and trying to slip into the tent while the watchers were distracted. Alas, he didn't quite get away with it.

"Finally. Let's see what the Five deigned to give the child of an [Adamant Guardian] and [Alacritous Blade]," said a voice laced with arrogance and pride. "Must be something embarrassing, given how unenthusiastic you are about revealing it."

"Or perhaps I just wanted to piss you off by making you wait?" suggested Damien, turning to the obese noble and having to try very hard not to let the surprise show at finding him wearing the exact same leer he'd seen in his vision.

Not that it lasted long. A vein pulsed on the noble's forehead as his expression twisted.

And then a hand landed on his shoulder, and he practically deflated. "You should not berate someone for declining to take advantage of their station," said the representative of the palace. "Such a showing of humility should be respected."

Damien was frankly impressed. He could see the anger draining out of the noble, even before the palace person started speaking. That had to be a skill of some sort.

"Aww, you spoilt my fun," he said with a smile as he entered the tent, and then once again needed to school his expression when he saw the elderly, bespectacled appraiser, wearing the exact same cardigan he'd seen in his vision.

"Name?" she asked, being from out of town and not knowing Damien by sight. Although the crowd of people clustering behind him should have been a clue of some sort.

"Damien."

She nodded, made a note on a sheet of paper, looked at him, then squeaked.

"That's exactly what I said when I looked at my status," he said, trying not to laugh.

"Actually, what you said was unrepeatable in front of a polite audience," shouted Fleta from somewhere outside, probably as a reminder to the crowd that she and Shigeo existed, and were watching.

"Enough nonsense!" complained the noble. "Just get on with it already!"

"Very well. His class is... is... [The Judgement]. Tier ten."

The crowd fell silent. Mostly.

"What? There's no way anyone can be tier ten. Was that why you were so upset to start with? Got something so embarrassing you didn't want to show it, then ran to your mummy to get some sort of magic tool to hide it?"

Damien turned back to the tent's entrance, but looked past the arrogant noble, fixing his gaze on the palace representative instead.

"Do you really believe humility should be respected?" he asked.

"Of course not. However, there was value in endearing myself..." started the representative, before catching himself. His carefully curated expression broke for a moment as he stared at Damien.

"Aww, so that's the extent of what that skill can do at level one. Should be great fun with a few more levels behind it, though."

"[Truthseeker] without a prayer?" he mumbled, then looked at the appraiser.

"Yes, his first skill was [Truthseeker]," she confirmed.

The noble took a step backwards. "You can't just use that on people! Do that again and I'll have you arrested!"

"Will you? Why?" asked Damien, still very much using it.

"Because you could force me to tell you about the money I embezzled, or the girl I..." he started, before the palace representative once again placed a hand on his shoulder, causing him to immediately shut up.

"Girl?" asked Damien, no longer acting simply for the fun of it.

The brat's expression twisted into one of familiar horror, fulfilling another part of Damien's vision, but he remained silent. The palace representative's grip tightened, a brief flicker of concentration on his face as he apparently counteracted Damien's skill.

"Enough," he said quietly. "It seems there is a crime here that needs investigation, but that holds no relevance to you."

"Were you not paying attention to the name of my class?"

"I was, and should you wish to enter the kingdom's judiciary, it would be very much appreciated. However, for now, you hold no official authority."

Damien peered at the servant's careful smile, hunting for the edges of smugness that he noticed in his vision. They were nowhere to be found; in fact, there was perhaps a touch of concern, or maybe even fear.

"Interesting," he commented. Had it not happened yet, or was he changing the future? "Well, have you recorded the rest of my skills?" he asked the appraiser.

"Yes, I'm all done. You may leave," she answered, her voice a little strained.

"Any arguments from you?"

"Not at all," answered the servant. "I'm sure you have a busy time ahead of you."

The noble brat looked very much like he wanted to say something, but the servant still had a grip on him. Whatever skill he was using to keep him under control, he didn't let it up even as Damien left the tent. The other assorted watchers were standing well back, realising the situation was well above their pay grade, and simply hanging around to collect whatever intelligence they could to bring back to their assorted masters.

"All done? Let's get on home, then," said Shigeo, and Damien was only too happy to agree.

But, as he was leaving, a single yelled line from a different tent caught his attention. "She stole my class!"

Despite that revelation, he held his tongue until they were safely back within the wards of their home. "So, my kid is a tier ten. The first one since the war of the rifts," beamed Shigeo. "This calls for a celebration!"

"I'll fetch one of the special bottles, shall I?" asked Grace.

"Please do!"

Meanwhile, Damien was focusing more on his mum. "You have good hearing. What was that about a stolen class?"

"Yeah, that was weird. Some guy's daughter got the tier one [Neophyte Smith] class, but when her father took exception to it, somehow his class changed to [Neophyte Smith], resetting his level to one, while she got his class along with his levels, perks and feats."

"Oh, wow. That is perfect," beamed Damien. [Divine Punishment]? More like poetic justice.

"Huh? Wait... Did you?"

"Yeah, one of my skills. [Divine Punishment]. I kinda snapped and used it on him when he attacked her. I was expecting him to explode or something, but that's even better."

Fleta frowned. "You used a skill on someone expecting it to kill them? Deliberately?"

"You didn't see what I saw..." muttered Damien darkly. "Another of my skills... [Foresight]... I saw how she ended up if I didn't interfere."

"A skill to see the future? Even a [High Priest] or [Oracle] wouldn't get something like that... I suppose it's not too surprising, next to the ability to swap out someone's class. But even if so, you should have informed a guard. Or even us, if what he was doing wasn't technically illegal. You know we'd have sorted it."

Damien pondered, wondering whether to tell his parents of the source of his class. He was worried they wouldn't understand; they thought badly enough of him for defending a girl from an abusive father, so what would they think about him literally turning his back on the Five? Best to keep his eldritch patron to himself, at least until he had some levels under his belt. Regardless of tier, he was still only level one. There was no reason to draw more attention than necessary until that was corrected, a task for which his parents would be very useful. They needed to be kept on his side, even if that meant not sharing the whole truth.

"You can't be everywhere and fix everything," commented Damien. "Rather, it's the other way around. I saw you in my vision, too. Another dragon came for the pair of you, presumably for revenge, and you didn't win."

"What? What details can you tell us? We need to prepare," said Shigeo, suddenly deadly serious.

"I didn't see much. Just the dragon, which was far bigger than the last one. Mum had a claw wound across her chest, so deep she was practically bisected, and you burnt to death."

"Far bigger than the one we took down? But that was already an adult."

"An ancient?" suggested Fleta.

"Then we're screwed. The best we can do is get away from populated areas and pray it's only coming for us."

Damien sighed. "Don't give up just yet. Tier ten, remember."

"But level one. Convince the dragon to go away for a decade or two, and maybe you'll be high enough level to help out."

Damien considered his vision. Given his parents looked unaged from their current state, Shigeo had a valid point. His level one [Truthseeker] had worked perfectly on the noble brat, but he wouldn't have been high level himself, and the palace servant had been able to completely counteract it once he'd spotted what was going on.

But he had more skills than [Truthseeker].

"I need to test out my other skills. What do you suppose [Whispers of the Void] does, for example?"

"The hell?" asked Shigeo rhetorically.

"Or [Touch of Madness], or [Tears of the Forgotten]. Or heck, even [Bloodwave]."

Fleta looked on in suspicion, but what was she going to accuse him of? She wasn't privy to the information that the entire bowl was an artificial construct, or the true history of the war of the rifts. Not in a century would she have guessed that the ceremony of paths had been infiltrated by the Other. She had little choice but to blame the insane-sounding skills on the high tier.

They turned out to be pretty cool.

A week later, Damien was in the middle of a nest of orgwölds, Fleta watching him carefully, while Shigeo was relaxing on a rock, eating a sandwich.

"Please take this more seriously, dear," sighed Fleta.

"I would, but... you know," answered Shigeo, gesturing in the general direction of Damien. He was kinda hard to see, hidden behind the walls of blood that formed both shield and spear. A group of orgwölds crashed into it, sinking slightly in, then screaming as they were dragged the rest of the way. The wave pulsed outwards, enveloping another dozen of the monsters, then drew back inwards, leaving clean skeletons in its wake. "I think we're kinda surplus to requirements here."

Damien had decided not to enter any place of higher education; it wasn't as if there were any that could teach him about his skills, nor any that offered safer places to experiment than this.

Most low-level people wouldn't consider a monster nest a safe place, but most people didn't have skills like [Whispers of the Void].

"S̸̲̆ǘ̴̡f̶̯͆f̸̻͂ë̶͖r̷͙͋," whispered Damien, and all monsters within earshot keeled over, clawing at their own bleeding ears. Even Fleta and Shigeo winced. "P̸̫̾ẻ̸̼r̸̝̿ȉ̷̲s̸̱̚h̶̨̄," he added, and they fell to the ground, unmoving.

His wave of blood pulsed outwards again, this time splitting apart into hundreds of floating globules. On the surface of each one, dozens of lidless eyes emerged from the liquid's surface, glancing around as Damien tapped into [Itinerant Eyes]. Even hundreds of the bloody spheres were insufficient to search the entire forest at once, but Damien could cheat there, too.

He plotted a course, then tapped into [Foresight], scanning along it for signs of monsters. When he found none, he adjusted the course and used [Foresight] again. It took mere seconds to confirm the forest was clear.

"All done," he said.

"See?" responded Shigeo, before popping the remainder of the sandwich into his mouth.