Retreating back to his room, he petted Chops and then decided to check on his Weave. Oz grunted, pleased to see he now had seventeen essence. The boss had been worth three, and clearing the dungeon had granted him ten, which was an incredible bonus. He was unsurprised when he noticed that clearing the dungeon and killing the jackal master had netted him enough experience to pass another threshold, giving him the option to unlock one of his remaining enhancements, mental, cohort or environmental.

  Given he wasn't a spell caster, mental would most likely improve his defences or give him some kind of augmentation based around improving how buffs affected him. Mental, as far as he remembered, was very predictable.

  Environmental was the opposite. It could change how he moved across certain surfaces, it could make him resistant to heat, he'd even heard that crafters sometimes got boosts to their stats as long as they were in the environment of their workshop. Oz would certainly hold off choosing that one.

  Cohort seemed like a bad choice, he wasn’t used to working with others.

  His racial evolution options still hung there. He could choose to accept it, he had enough points, but the idea of picking either gnawed at him. The sensible path was to pick dwarf. It wasn't like he'd ever leaned that much on his troll heritage and everyone just thought he was a tall dwarf most of the time anyway. Rather than consider it any longer he chose to ignore it. It wasn’t a good time to choose that option anyway.

  Racial evolutions were, of all the powers of the Weave, the ones that had the most chance of physically changing you. Right now the clothes he wore and body he was in were the only familiar things he had.

  That was ignoring the complicated knot of feelings he had when he thought back to his heritage.

  The next step was to pull out the skill crystals he had. He quickly unstitched the patch on the inside of his jacket to reveal the few remaining skills his father had left him. Oz remembered the arguments that had raged when his dad had pressed them into his hands. If you died the skills went with you, and Urstal had known he was fading even between the madness.

  It was the only time Oz could remember hitting his father in anger. He’d been so furious, to be given this evidence, this ultimate display that his father was preparing for death. What was once an intangible threat became an inevitable future.

  Oz sat down at his desk, taking in a deep, shuddering breath, and Chops came over and rested his heads on his knees.

  They stayed like that for a while.

  Oz dug himself out of that and focused on feeding the Other what it needed to know. No need to think on dark times.

  Before you got a class a person could only absorb one skill, and switching that out required hours of meditation and an empty skill stone.

  One’s skill slots expanded though as you gained a class and tier. Your class gave you some slots for ‘suitable’ powers. Mages might get a few skill slots but only for spells, and crafting or utility-based classes tended to offer lots of slots but were really picky about combat powers. Oz assumed that [Delinquent] would only allow combat skills, maybe some kind of fear skills.

  If he wanted anything outside that he’d be using up one of his three general slots, which could be used for anything and tended to fill up fast.

  One of them was of course going to [Runic Empowerment]. That was the skill his father had treasured, an heirloom passed down to him, and one he’d got quite used to using.

  An active skill that would increase the potency of any runes he was wielding temporarily. It was a significant boost, but it only worked on runes you’d created, which for the average person was a limitation, but for Oz it was perfect. It was a rare skill and useful enough that when he'd looked it up in a skill index the cost had been enough to make him drop the book.

  Yet it wasn't the rarest skill.

  [Healing Breath] was a green crystal. The little icosahedron, not much larger than his thumbnail, was easily the most valuable thing he owned. That included the entire plot of land and the house on it that Oz had inherited. When he'd looked that one up, after having picked up the book and retreated to the most abandoned part of the library, he'd nearly torn the skill index in half.

  There was no price listed, just a note saying ‘Available at auctions rarely’.

  It was obvious why it was. It was a potent self-healing power based on Physique rather than Wisdom or Processing, which made sense as unlike the vast majority it wasn't a spell-type skill, but rather a ‘martial’ healing skill. Oz was pretty sure his dad had been given this during or in payment for the battle of the Dozen, the same one that had shredded his soul. Given that he'd barely mentioned it when he'd been alive, and wasn’t half as proud of it as the rune skill, Oz wasn’t even sure if anyone knew he had it.

  If anyone was going to poison him, Oz would’ve assumed this was why, which made the fact it was still in his possession all the more baffling.

  He'd only held off using it because day to day the rune skill came up far more. While the healing skill had always been tempting, it was also something he knew he'd be tempted to use. His trollish blood though was more than enough regeneration to handle most wounds. Even if he got in a top-tier scrap he’d generally be fine after a day or two. It wasn’t necessary, but now, given his experience in the Gauntlet, Oz was kicking himself for not having [Healing Breath] in his arsenal.

  He laid out the remaining options. He had three more skills from his dad. The spell [Shape Earth], a classic option for any miner. It was a decent spell but more of a utility than combat tool. Then there was the dud skill, at least for now, [Lesser Golem], which while amazing in that it allowed you to animate a prepared golem body, was only useable by those D-tier or above.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  That left the only skill option he had that he felt confident would work with his class.

  [Stance of the Menhir] waited for him. The skill crystal was grey quartz shot through with misty white lines that caught in the light. The combat form was another valuable skill option, an active skill that demanded a certain combat stance to engage, but once activated would increase his defences and make him near immovable to anything in his tier.

  Oz could feel the Other’s ravenous desire to start plotting how to use these skills, to explore and understand them, when he felt a poke in his side. There was another skill? It was only when he fished it out and saw the colourful crystal, each side splattered with a different colour, that he remembered he still had his first skill.

  [Paint Spray]

  The skill his mother had given him when his skill slot had opened up when he was ten, a year before she headed out on the mission she’d never return from. It had been a happier time, one where he’d used any surface he could get his hands on to draw and paint.

  You could see how long it had been since he’d been painting by how low down the art was. Where once he’d stood on his toes to eke out every bit of extra canvas to work with, after she left he’d never filled up the walls.

  It was a skill he’d loved but had been almost forgotten even before his dad had all but forced the [Runic Empowerment] crystal on him. Memories of it painted over by all that had happened since.

  He hadn’t used the skill in years, and yet even when money had been tight he’d never quite had the nerve to sell it. It was one of the few things he still had of his mother. In fact all the crystals stirred long buried memories, which arose clawing at him with muddy fingers.

  

  What stood out was the images of the ‘Grimhold’, the project that had consumed his father’s waning years. His father had gone tunnelling into the mountains like a deranged mole mixed with an obsessive architect. There were beautiful stone halls carved out, with grand columns, sporting classical designs, but only accessible through twisting corridors that linked to the ceiling or halfway up walls.

  Originally Oz had thought of it as a place where he could go be paranoid in peace. But the truly paranoid never knew peace, so all it did was give him a place to scale up his paranoia. Oz had rarely dared go further than the first hall, the traps becoming genuinely lethal the further you strayed from the beautiful hall with its octagonal columns and high arched ceiling.

  That was where he'd buried his father. Building a sarcophagus by hand to inter him. And it was why he was most conflicted about using the skills. It wasn't a bad idea to have some options, but the baggage it came with made him itch with feelings and thoughts that he couldn't blame on the Other. He didn't like those feelings and thoughts.

  At some point Chops moved up and started to nudge and lick him, and Oz realised he'd been sitting hunched over his meagre possessions for long enough that he could feel the stiffness in his back.

  Oz groaned. He’d been thinking. That was not good. Time to get doing.

  He needed something to do. Oz looked at the stack of documents before him, the course guides and other paperwork he’d been loaded with, and immediately ignored them. That would only be more thinking. It might also be doing, but that wasn’t what he was aiming for.

  Following the instincts of a master procrastinator, he began to look around for some stone before he realised he had none of the tools needed to relax with his favourite hobby.

  Knapping a stone blade.

  People think the dwarves’ favoured weapon is the axe. A misconception that dwarves are keen to encourage. It ensures the knife comes as a surprise when it's sticking in your thigh. Dwarven knives come in many shapes and sizes, but for most it’s a tool of utility and function. Part tool, part weapon.

  Some argue a true dwarvish knife is one a dwarf carves out of stone themselves. A reminder of a time when stone was all the dwarves had. This knife should also be runed, ideally with the best runes that dwarf can make. The dwarf should constantly push their craft. The knife should be iterated, new blades made as the tool or weapon became worn with use and outpaced by their development. That way showing your knife should be a testament to the two ancient skills every dwarf should have. Stone work and rune work.

  Most dwarves think that this is nonsense. Yes, you should carry a knife, it’s part of culture and always a good tool when someone starts making too many short jokes. Most though felt that in the modern day it was better that a knife instead be a piece of art, a way of showing your wealth and power.

  No one had told Oz this.

  As a result, Oz made knives a lot. If he was being honest with himself, and thanks to the Other he was forced to be, it probably hadn't helped others’ opinions of him. Even if Mr Goddley, his runes teacher, had approved of it as an appropriate cultural tradition, he had quietly impressed on him how disappointed he’d be if Oz used his knives when he got in a fight.

  That was why Oz liked Mr Goddley. He understood that fights just happened to Oz. Still, he needn’t have bothered with the warning. It’s not like Oz ever needed a knife to end a fight. And the kids in the school had never escalated to pulling weapons, well aware of the cultural icon that sat on his belt just waiting for an excuse to be used.

  Oz found himself standing, readying himself to go out into the woods and just find some decent stones. Tools were useful, but at its core Oz knew that rock plus rock equals knife. He stepped out of his room with a plan in mind.

  To his surprise waiting in the common room were Venna and Miss Lily. She waved at him.

  “Umm hello?” he managed. Chops immediately dashed past him, keen to meet the new person.

  “Hey, good to see you, nice place you’ve got here, brings back a lot of memories. Oh, and this must be Chops.” She started petting Chops, who, oblivious to his master’s hesitation, was sucking up to her with both heads.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We were meant to meet. Did Aldo not mention it?”

  “Oh right! Sorry… I don’t have my timepiece, I lost track of time.” Oz slapped his hand across his face. He might not be sure how he felt about Venna, but he liked to be punctual.

  “No worries. Why is Miss Lily here?”

  “I wanted to check on you. I hear there was some kind of altercation?”

  “I’m hardly fragile. I…” Oz paused as he heard a door scrape behind him. Both women flinched.

  “I didn’t sense anyone,” Venna muttered.

  “Oz, has someone else moved in?” Angie’s peppy voice was all the warning the room got before she bounded out to join them, her eyes focusing on the two visitors.

  “Damned school blocking me, I meant to keep this quiet,” Venna cursed and stood, trying to fix a friendly smile on her face. Lily’s face fell into her hands.

  “Hello, I—” Angie’s energy went from firecracker to fizzle as she finally took in Venna. Her voice became thin and breathless. “What’s going on, why is The Colossi…”

  It was only Oz's improved awareness that allowed him to spot the way her eyes rolled back into her head, and only his enhanced deftness gave him the speed to vault over the sofa to catch her. Only to find a strange energy wrapped round her supporting body. Behind him he felt energy crackling from Venna.

  “Well, no one’s fainted in my presence in months,” Venna pinched her nose, not paying attention as Oz dashed across the hall to grab the coat off its hook.

  “Are you forgetting Gurzeg?” Lily cut in.

  “I knocked him out, that doesn’t count. Why are you grabbing your coat?” She raised an eyebrow at Oz as he yanked the attire off the hook by the front door and threw it over Angie.

  “Would you quit bantering and prepare for werewolf,” Oz growled.

  “Prepare for the what?” Venna asked, just as the sound of fabric tearing started.