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“I’m sorry, training sergeant, but my name is still Rhishisikk.”

She immediately moved to strike me with her baton. I wasn’t there.

Say what you will about chain over leather, it doesn’t impair your movements unless it’s worn wrong. For that matter, neither does the full plate worn by the dwarven Warrior caste. True, it’s heavy. A normal human would find it ankle-crushing and limiting of their movements.

Sergeant Arknosos was NOT a mere three Might, and was probably above five. She caught me on the backswing, dealing only eight damage, which my total armor could absorb. Still, it hurt like one of Kismet’s bare handed attacks.

“Your name is whatever I say it is, Slug.” she told me. “You think your victory in the arena makes you worthy to be here?”

“Nope.” I said, dodging another of her swings. Dang, but it was hard! And getting harder. It was almost as if...

I stopped dodging, took her next strike squarely in the chest plate. And the next. And the next, which was hard because she’d swung at a kneecap that time.

“What are you DOING?” she asked.

.....

“What are YOU doing?” I asked. “My Might is rating 5, effectively 6 Strength. My Valor is 4, my Agility only 3. My best melee skill is Block, and the weapon I’m most skilled with is a Knife. What else do you want to know?”

“What I need to know is that you’re able to fight. That you can take a hit and keep going. That you aren’t going to go out on your first assignment and come back trailing a hundred groks just because you only saw one.”

A grok, for those who must know, is a dwarven term for goblins. As you might expect, it has negative connotations, which I won’t get into here.

I chuckled. “Some day, somewhere, there might be only one goblin.”

[You have been struck for sixteen points of blunt damage. After armor, six points have been received. 74/80 health remain.]

She moved quickly to strike me across the snout. “Stop blathering, and FIGHT, you useless Slug!”

Well, I’ve pointed out their natural armor, and wearing full plate on top of that... I mean, I might have hurt her, just a little, on some of the critical hits, but for the most part, no, I really wasn’t.

I was bashing on a metal covered stone with what had once been a combat knife. (Even if Heart’s Protector hadn’t been turned over to an enchanter, I wasn’t about to dull my prize blade in the ‘let’s humiliate the newbie’ fight.)

“Well, Slug. You’re down to half health. You want to keep fighting?”

I pulled a shield out of inventory, began strapping it to my arm. “I don’t think I really get an option. Everyone else passing through this training has to fight until they get knocked out. Let’s be about that, then.”

“Huhr.” she said, and began striking with her full strength. Strength seven hits, twenty four damage, fourteen after armor. Oh, I blocked like crazy, it just didn’t help.

Well, I suppose losing another shield that way may have helped the local economy some.

I awoke with the taste of fungus in my mouth and a day’s less nutrition than I should have. Uck. All the healing potion choices they had, and they went with... well, of course they did. The potion probably used materials we could find in the caverns.

Still, yuck.

I rolled off the hard cold slap I’d been laid out on, onto the cold hard floor. I’d slept on worse, but not when there were other options.

On one wall, there were luminous letters (to those who could see the ultraviolet spectrum).

THE BARRACKS OF HELL, read the left series.

LIFE OUTSIDE THE WARRIOR CASTE, read the right.

Maybe this, finally, was what passed the duhr for humor?

I forced open my swollen right eyelid; the cornea of that eye needed healing.

Still... Her assault had added two skill points to Valor/Melee Defense/Parry/Knife Parry, and one to Valor/Melee Defense/Parry/Arminger Parry. I hadn’t even known that last was an open subskill. I thought it needed an Arminger ability to unlock.

So... three skill points in one day.

Of course I turned left.

“You Slug?” a tiny, thin dwarf asked me. His skin was pitted in places, melted in others. His limbs were unbalanced, and he was missing two fingers on his more intact arm.

“My name,” I said, “is Rhishisikk.”

He pointed back the way I’d come.

“Every single member of this profession has been a useless Slug at one point or another. If you aren’t a useless Slug, then your quarters are outside this training compound.”

Ah, blackmail! I could just turn away from this pointless...

Could I?

I’ll be honest, even if it only led to another level one class, I wanted SOME manner of training. Especially if it was intense enough to actually challenge me.

Plus, remember when I’d mentioned that dwarves and elves also had levels of Inherent Longevity? That meant that while they might not have divisors as high as mine, they weren’t strangers to the concept.

But NOT NOW. Needed to focus, conversation was going on.

“I regard myself as a highly useful Slug.” I said, “One whose value hasn’t been recognized yet.”

“A bold decision, young Slug.” he said, “One I can respect, if also know is not the wisest course of action. Your cubicle is this way.”

Remember when I said that dwarves didn’t accept the existence of doors or privacy?

“Slug.” one trainee said, hostility in his voice.

“Useless Slug.” said another.

“At least this Slug looks wealthy.” said another. “When he squishes in training, we can loot his corpse.”

These were to be my brothers and sisters, with whom I was to entrust my life? Pass. Even the new Green Mold threw out a social barb for me.

See, the thing is, I didn’t respect a single one of them. Okay, I’d been more armored than the humans around me. But them? They probably had no clue what pain even was.

Not that I had any plans to teach them. If they wanted to behave like beasts, then okay, I’d treat them like beasts. You ignored the beast that only growled or yowled or barked; you didn’t strike back until they attacked first.

Besides, it wasn’t as if they were edible.

Actually... I had evolutions that could be used to digest stone. Digest crystal. I’m sure that SOMETHING had evolved to eat living stone.

The question on my mind was, natural or supernatural?

“Get some sleep, Slug.” the crippled one said to me. “The rest of you, back to training.”

“Why don’t I have training?” I asked.

“Because you, Slug, are below half health. No point in training you if you’re going to die.”

Uhm... okay...

“What should I call you?” I asked.

“Dwarf.” he said. “We all look the same to you squishies, right? Call me Dwarf.”

“Okay, Dwarf. What did this to you? It looks like a combination of acid and lava.”

He drew himself up straight, scowl on his face. “My business is mine. Your business is sleep.”

“My apologies.” I said.

“The apology of a slug is meaningless.” he said, stomping off.

Well, crap. He was the only one who had been even remotely nice to me.

[Lucid Dreaming successful.]

Remember how I said sometimes mana just didn’t want to hold together? Sometimes, it also doesn’t want to convert from one type to another. Having been underground, I’d had plenty of access to Shadow mana.

It had taken two days to assemble the parts to merge a single point of Celestial Heavens faith. I wasn’t about to let it go to waste.

“Manajuwejet, spirit guide, spirit scorpion, servant of vengeance, hear me! This is Rhishisikk, Shaman and Dream Walker! By this sphere of...”

“Yeah, yeah, kid. I hear you. You don’t need to shout.” he said.

“Oh.” I said. “It was an off day, I wasn’t sure.”

He spun one of his pincers in a circle. “Kid, when Sobek tells me you need to tithe, I ask how much.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Ten percent. Kind of standard. Unless that ten percent buys enough equipment for a small fortification. Congrats, kid.”

I shrugged. “I’m living with dwarves. They don’t want me actually touching the money.”

“Well, I mean yeah, if you want to live in a lightless underground tomb city, that’s one way to keep your money safe. Uh, are you...”

“No. I’m not staying. The plan is still to get the harem and get out. Kind of.”

He broke out laughing during my explanation, but I couldn’t blame him for that.

“Kid, you have just the worst luck. Have you met a people who ever didn’t try to exploit or kill you?”

“That’s a very broad range of behavior.” I said.

“Vengeance.” he said. “Sounds like you should be dishing some out. Warrior caste, that’s some pretty harsh hazing methods, if memory serves.”

I shrugged. “I’ve survived worse. But yes, you can tell Sobek that I’m more likely than not to submit a quest for vengeance. Possibly soon.”

.....

“I’m proud of you, kid. You’re growing so fast.”