Master of None

by Shane Walker

  My riposte was predictably met by a circular parry that knocked my sword on that side completely offline and my flank exposed. Rather than following my old instinct of rotating at the hips to bring my other weapon to bear in an attempt to block, I simply stepped back with the foot of the open side. This helped to bring my other weapon to bear more quickly and reduced my profile. Unfortunately, it also removed the benefit of dual wielding, which was the equalizer here. My only shot was to simply have more swords to swing than her.

  Oh. Clever girl.

  It hit me then that it was an intentional move on her part. She knew I had learned from previous mistakes and would go for economy of movement, so she used it against me to eliminate the thing that kept me in the fight. She followed up with a constant stream of remise after remise. This meant she wasn’t withdrawing her sword between attacks. She just chained together attacks that flowed from one to the next.

  I realized my best option was to leverage my high Agility and try to reset the fight by leaping backwards and out of her range. It almost worked except for the fact that she had a high ass Agility, too! I had just taken a proper stance again when she was there attacking. This time I was better prepared and managed to launch my own attacks as well when I could squeeze in a riposte that wouldn’t get me run through. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t keep it up for forever and she finally found a hole in my defense. In fact she took it upon herself to fill said hole with a dueling sabre with an attack that brought me immediately to my knees.

  Destraza has won the duel!

  I expected that, but was pleased it took her so long to beat me. That was probably all I could ever hope for, honestly: making it take her longer to kick my ass.

  I opened up notifications and was blown away.

  Short Swords has increased to 20!

  Block has increased to 12!

  Parry has increased to 25!

  Dodge has increased to 35!

  Those were massive skill increases from a single fight! I was eager to get back into it, but Des demanded I take a break to replay the fight over and over in my head so I could point out my mistakes to her.

  After going over the fight a few times, I thought I had figured it out so I told her I was ready.

  “First, my riposte was predictable. It set me up to have my second weapon knocked off-line which cost me my single advantage in the fight.” I said.

  “Correct. I’m more skilled than you so you have to keep every possible advantage available to you.” she responded with a pleased look on her face. “Next?”

  “When that happened, I stepped back to bring my other weapon into a position to defend with. It seemed like the best move at the time, but it just made the problem worse.” I explained.

  “That’s right. You threw away your chances of winning right then. Now what’s the third?” she asked.

  This one had been the hardest to figure out. “I didn’t have enough faith in my own ability to defend so I tried to disengage which left me vulnerable because I couldn’t outmaneuver you.” I finally said.

  “Yep! You could have probably gotten away with that against a slower, less agile opponent, but I’ve got you beat on all counts, Jack. Knowing how you’re built and how I’m built I can tell you what the right call was if you want.” she said without a hint of condescension. For her, stating her superiority was just a fact, and it was one she didn’t try lording over me like she said she did with her opponents in real life. It turns out, if you show a modicum of respect to people they will do the same in return.

  “I’d love that, actually!” I said eagerly.

  “You should have kept defending. Your defenses are strong and you held up well. You actually have a massive SP pool compared to me and you could have stonewalled me until I hit fatigue. At that point you likely could have finished the fight. However, now that I know you know it’s an option I won’t attack like that again. I will look to end the fight more quickly next time.” she explained.

  And end it quickly she did. Sixteen more times to be exact. Every time I started to keep up it was like she hit the accelerator in a car and just sped up even more. Her timing and reflexes were unreal. It showed me how much she held back in our fights and made me wonder what she fought like in the real world. I’d have to talk to her about seeing a match sometime.

  After an hour of fighting and losing non-stop, Des told me it was time to change things up. She signaled for the match to begin and immediately took a half step back and went into a defensive stance I’d never seen her take.

  “It’s time for you to learn how to make decisions and control the fight, Jack. When you’re on defense you’re predictable. You have specific reactions to specific situations and you always react like that. Part of it is inexperience because you don’t know multiple ways to respond to certain attacks. Part of it is because you don’t improvise the same as you do outside of battle.” she explained.

  “When you work on your business and crafting you look at ways to do things outside the box, but when you fight you’re rigid. You need to learn to think on your feet when you hold your blade.” she continued.

  “Easier said than done, Des. I’m not a fighter like you.” I replied.

  “Then stop trying to think and act like one! Use your fucking brain, Jack!” she nearly yelled at me.

  Stop trying to act like one? Holy shit, maybe she was right. I was trying to fight like her but I wasn’t her. I’d never be even close to as good. I had to do this my way. I stared her down for a moment and mentally reactivated my skill notifications. I wanted to see in real-time if this worked and if it boosted me.

  Screwing my face in anger at her words, I charged with reckless abandon directly at her defenses. Her momentary confusion quickly became resignation as she shifted her footing to prepare to defend. She saw the anger on my face and took it to mean I was offended. Therefore she was ready to receive the charge of an angry and inexperienced swordsman.

  She shifted her weight and moved her hips ever so slightly and I realized she was going to try to step out of the path of my charge at the last second. Luckily for me I never had any intention of finishing the charge.

  Your Bluff skill has increased to 21!

  Your Perception skill has increased to 21!

  At the last second, before she made her move, I threw my weight to the same side she was about to step to, using my Agility to keep me on my feet and reverse the grip on the sword on that side mid-stride without dropping it. She was so ready for my obvious attack that it took her just a half second too long to react to my change in tactics. It was just long enough for her to stay open to the slash from the sword I’d just reversed. I correctly assumed it would be easier to land the attack if I just stuck the blade out as I shot past. I would have made a joke to Des about it, but she didn’t seem like the type that’d be too into cartoons about robots shaped like animals. Oh well.

  Your Dual-Wielding skill has increased to 27!

  Your Short Swords skill has increased to 22!

  Des left very little time to celebrate, unfortunately for me. She lurched forward after being hit and used the momentum to shift into a roll forward to open a gap. Returning to her defensive stance, she had an expression I’d never seen on her before.

  She was impressed!

  Now that I had learned from the previous attack that I could use skills like Bluff to do feints in combat, I started launching an all-out assault on Des’ defenses. I started with a legitimate attack with one sword followed by a feint with the other that set up a follow-up with the first.

  Bluff increased to 22!

  Bluff increased to 23!

  I would randomly change the intervals between feints and committed attacks, which rewarded me with several landed blows that I did not expect at all. It also gave me some solid increases to skills.

  Parry increased to 26!

  Bluff increased to 24!

  Dual-Wielding increased to 28!

  Short Swords increased to 25!


  After those jumps, though, Des decided playtime was over. “My turn.” she said with a predatory smile that sent a chill down my spine. Almost as if I were a child with sticks pretending to be a warrior, she stuck her saber between my swords and with a swish between them so fast it blurred, sent both swords away from my center mass to the point they were practically useless. Then, in a very practiced motion, she hit me with the attack I’d seen her use when we first met and ended the fight instantly.

  “Very good, Jack. I’m honest to God proud of you!” she said. “Unfortunately, I had to make sure that I reminded you how outclassed you are. Gotta keep you humble, right?”

  “And make sure you get to stay on the payroll, I’m sure.” I replied with a grin. “If I thought I could handle myself and beat you, I might not keep you around!”

  That got a laugh out of her. “Ha! You might be able to handle some of the other scrubs out there one day that are just playing at being swordsmen, but you’re years of practice away from me, boss!”

  She was probably right about that. I didn’t need to be as good as her, though. I didn’t walk away from the training as some sort of expert swordsman, but the training was certainly worth it. I had to start playing to my strengths and quit trying to be something I wasn’t. Sure I was fast, but there would be faster opponents somewhere. Speed wasn’t always going to be my advantage. I had to start leveraging everything I could during a fight.

  I made another note for another thing to do when I finished up with the Thieves Guild. It was time to work on using more skills in unexpected ways. No sense being a Jack of All Trades if I wasn’t constantly trying to find new skills and new ways to use them!

  With that thought, I bid everyone goodnight and logged off for the evening. The next day I had a major errand to run and had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that I wasn’t about to meet up with an entire guild without my beauty sleep.

  34-Sub-Contracting

  When I arrived at the entrance to the Thieves Guild’s cover business, I had been expecting it to be a perpetuation of typical fantasy tropes, maybe something like a tavern or an “import/export” business. What I did not expect was a City Works satellite office. As Rowan explained, they used the city’s sewer system as a means of clandestine travel to and from jobs as well as a means of escape from the city guard.

  The City Works section of the local government was responsible for maintaining said sewers and each office had protected access to these sewers. In fact, they were the only place where one could access the sewer system at all. It seemed like a perfect cover for their activities.

  “Ah, good morning, sir. How can this Corbinhold City Works office help you today?” said the clerk sitting at the counter as I entered the front door.

  “I need to speak to management about a drainage problem. The city guard is full of shit.” I said in response, reciting the passphrase Rowan gave me.

  “Of course. Right this way, sir.” he said with a knowing smile. He lifted a section of the counter and motioned for me to enter the area behind. After I passed, he closed the entrance behind me and guided me to a back room. Upon entering, I saw the only thing inside was a stairwell leading downward into an area underground. My escort motioned for me to follow the stairs down. As soon as he saw I would follow his instructions when I began my descent, he returned wordlessly to his post at the front of the building.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I found a large steel door with what I assumed was a slot that could open for one to peek from behind the safety of the door. I was proven correct a moment later when it opened to reveal a pair of eyes staring at me. “Who the fuck are you?” asked the paragon of manners and etiquette looking at me through narrowed eyes.

  “Jack Alltrades. I’m here to discuss business with the guild on behalf of Rowan Vonn.” I replied. Rowan had told me what he wanted me to discuss but it seemed like a ridiculous thing for him to concern himself with.

  “Oh yeah. You’re the cat that’s supposed to be running an errand for the boss. Gimme a sec.” he said and the slot was quickly closed once again. After waiting for a very long minute the door finally started to creep open, revealing the hideout of the Corbinhold Thieves Guild.

  To say it wasn’t what I expected to see underground was an absolute understatement. It looked every bit to be what one would expect from the first floor of a normal tavern. Booths full of drunk thieves lined the walls with tables in the middle playing host to whispered discussions of loot and luck. At the far end of the room was a bar that stretched nearly from one side to the other, save another doorway in the back right leading deeper in.

  As I finished taking it all in, I noticed a man approaching in what was easily the most expensive outfit in the room. His clothes were tailor made of what were clearly very expensive fabrics. Even so, they didn’t have the garish look one would expect of a noble trying to impress other nobles. Instead, they conveyed style and wealth in an incredibly understated way.

  “If you’d like, I can set you up with my tailor. Clearly you’re a man who can appreciate the quality of clothes like these.” he said with a smirk. Apparently, I’d been staring. Oops.

  “Sorry about that.” I said as I rubbed the back of my head. “The outfit sort of sticks out around here. I’m Jack, by the way.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Jack. I’m O’Brian and this is my guild.” he said as he reached out to shake my hand. Of course he didn’t really need to tell me he was the leader. The clothes and the way he carried himself made it painfully obvious. The only strange part was I didn’t see any weapons on his person. He seemed to be the only unarmed person in the room.

  I reached out as well and we grabbed forearms and shook. Thankfully none of my weapons were hidden at the moment. I had some wrist mounts made last-minute for my wands, but I was waiting to equip them to prevent anyone from thinking I was sneaking weapons in.

  “Let’s head to my office and discuss Rowan’s proposal in private.” he said and motioned for me to follow him. As we walked towards the door in the back, I noticed one of the thieves propped up in a booth with what appeared to be casts on both legs as if he’d broken both of them.

  “What’s that guy’s deal?” I asked O’Brian once I felt we were out of earshot. He looked back at where I was pointing and laughed.

  “Oh, that’s Tony. He found a ring that absorbs the kinetic energy from attacks and allows you to release it against an opponent. It’s very powerful if used properly and you don’t let it overload.

  Unfortunately, Tony let his buddy over there convince him that he could use it to absorb the impact from jumping out of a window and then release that energy to kill something instantly. As you can tell, the ring doesn’t work like that.”

  “Well, if he decides he wants to sell that ring, let me know. I’m always looking to buy new magical items.” I said. Maybe we could research it and come up with new applications.

  “I will let him know.” he said with a smirk as we entered his office and he closed the door behind us. “I can certainly appreciate a man looking for new business opportunities.

  “Speaking of which, we seem to have one for you. You see, we have an area in the sewers where my men keep disappearing and we don’t know why. After the second investigative team I sent disappeared, I decided I needed a different approach. I understand you’ve already been briefed on the matter, though. Thankfully, our mutual friend Mr. Vonn has been pestering us regarding guild policy for some time.” he explained. “Speaking of, he never really said what about our policy he wanted to discuss. I assume you know?”

  “I’m glad you asked. It’s simple, really. He wants you to leave the smaller targets alone. No more hitting the independent merchants or working class homes.” I told him, repeating what Rowan had briefed me on before I left.

  “And why would we do that?” he asked with a smirk, leaning in with a genuine curiosity.

  “It’s having negative effects on the city’s financial well-being. The kingdom is already teet
ering on the brink of collapse because of the war. If the city falls, the guild falls with it.” I explained. Rowan had laid out some of the general concepts for why he wanted this, but it was my job to sell it.

  Skill Synchrony Triggered!

  New Skill!

  Persuasion

  Level 30 (Bluff+Haggle)/2

  +1% chance per level to convince someone to take a specific course of action.

  That was unexpected. O’Brian seemed to be seriously considering my proposition, so I took the opportunity to ask my Guide what the hell was going on with that skill.

  Wait a minute. Alfred, why am I just now getting this if it’s a skill that’s been available?

  “All previous interactions involving you convincing an NPC of doing something in your favor have been financial in nature and to your direct benefit.” Alfred began. “In those situations, Haggle was the predominant Skill.