As Ruby locked the door to the office, she turned around to inspect Orison's exercise outfit and noticed two sets of unfamiliar equipment. "What are those awful looking mittens and booties for? We're not going out into the back yard to make snowmen and ice castles."

Orison said, "Well, the primary goal is learning and improvement. I'll be the first to admit than pain and it's accompanying marks of shame are good teachers but we'll be wearing them for the first hour of striker training. If you give the go ahead, we can ditch them when it's time for grappling."

Ruby smirked. "You afraid I'm going to work you over too fast?"

Orison looked back at her blandly. "You have to admit, the padded gloves and foot guards make trying to go for cheap thrills a useless endeavor. It also insures me you won't just go for a fast chin or temple strike to rob me of my time. I also have a decent cup on too, so a solid knee to the groin isn't going to easily earn you two hours off what I paid for either."

Leading him to the cleared courtyard of her house, Ruby said irritably, "You think you have it all figured out do you, mage?"

Orison laughed it off. "If I did, what the h.e.l.l would I need a sparring partner for?"

The Draconos woman left Orison to roam her yard as she went into her house to change. A few minutes later, she came out wearing a plain but rather official looking training uniform that was slightly faded but still serviceable. With a little coaxing, she donned the protective gear with a couple of off color comments about what she thought of them.

Orison sighed, "At least attempt to let me get some good training out of this instead of looking for a way to end it as fast as possible."

Ruby gave Orison an evil smile that lacked any real malice and said, "Oh, you'll learn something, one way or another... Remember, first hour's striking only and I'll end it the second one of three things happen; you intentionally start acting perverted, you use a Chosen ability or there's a serious injury. Who made these ridiculous things anyway?"

"Rithus made the gloves and foot guards. Duran made the cup. Luckily the last one's a little flexible. It's not quite the right size but I'd rather deal with a little discomfort than a busted t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e." Orison offered casually.

As they squared up, Ruby and Orison took in each other's stances and movements while she said, "Fight women rather than men a lot? Weak little bottom feeders like to build their confidence that way."

It was Orison's turn to smirk, "Psyching yourself up for playing dirty while convincing yourself I deserve it or are you just playing head games?"

Ruby started circling. "Oh? It was a pretty simple question. Looks like I hit the mark."

The moment was building and Orison knew that as soon as he opened his mouth to respond, she'd attack.

Pretending to fall for the bait, he said, "So it's both."

As she lunged for a hit, Orison tilted to the side and tried to redirect her into a hip toss. She went with it, combining his force with hers to land a back-hand to the side of his head that left his right ear ringing and the world shaking from Orison's perspective. Ruby finished off her neatly delivered double counter with a light roll back onto her feet.

Seeing him unsteady, Ruby went back in for some serious work over before he could recover. Unbalanced and unable to retreat or step forward without inviting more punishment, Orison fell onto his back and kicked upwards. It was executed blindly with little ability to aim but he managed to heel kick her directly in the pelvic region hard enough to lift her off her feet and drop her on her knees.

Hurriedly rolling to the side barely in time to avoid whatever had caused the heavy thump where he had just been, Orison yelled, "Red light! Do you need healing?"

Sadly, he only managed to finished his words before a gloved fist connected with his face, bouncing his head off the ground. Ruby's voice cut through his jarred senses with an affirmative response that finished with an entirely insincere sounding apology for not stopping on time. Unable to do so himself, Orison had Beta construct the basic summoner's sprite model before bring it into the world and handed it's control back over.

As reality slowly came back into decent stability, he found Ruby looking at him oddly as his dragonfly winged alien hovered over her abdomen. Running a heal charged hand over his face and the back of his head, Orison said, "What?"

With a disbelieving voice she said, "How did you cast a concentration spell while you were stunned? I may not be able to pull off anything near the potency of an actual Chosen fighting ability but I definitely stunned you."

Orison winced at the sharp sting the lump on the back of his head gave off before healing magic made it recede. "You did stun me but it was only a mundane version from punching my head into this frozen dirt. That accompanying needle of spirit essence didn't make it past my aura."

Ruby coughed to hide her embarra.s.sment over being caught cheating. "Either way... Forget it but color me slightly impressed. Anyway, we're both cheap trick fighters so at least I know you won't be throwing some dumb codes of conduct or misplaced chivalry at me while I'm trying to show you better ways to disable or maim someone."

The result was much better than Orison had hoped. Instead of merely taking a beating from her, stealing inspiration and technique, she actively taught him while he took a beating. By the time his two hours were up, she had defrosted towards him a great deal. Apparently, all a guy really needed to make friends with Ruby was a touch of masochism and the ability to overlook the occasional mean spirited insult. In retrospect, it wasn't easy to be friends with Ruby at all but she was a decent teacher and sparring partner. That's all Orison really cared about.

In the process of being shooed out of her courtyard, the young mage told her that his group had plans to go running in some local places with Emris and his wife. He didn't know how long it would take or when he'd have the next decent amount of freedom to meet for another sparring session but Ruby was content for it to be his problem to figure out. Her only free time was between eight to ten in the evening from the second to sixth days of the week and wasn't too keen to reserve time until he was sure when he could use it.

Once he had finished hobbling back to the cabin, Orison was immediately interrogated by Ivan. "How was getting hot and sweaty with that ice queen like?"

Orison sighed, "Educational and I have five more hours of torture left to go before I figure out if I want to pay for more of it."

Brows furrowing, the Nunos man asked, " You're... paying for her... time?"

"Yes, Ivan. We are sparring and she's teaching me. Do you expect her to do that for free?" Orison said tersely.

Ivan scratched his head, having some difficulty putting his thoughts to words.

Rithus tried to exercise some of his new understanding. "Orison is better at ignoring mating desire to receive other usefulness from someone than you are. Gan is better than him and I'm better than all of you."

Rithus finished off by making a comically arrogant pose. After taking some good natured ribbing and clowning around a little to keep awkward questions from being asked Gan and Duran, he filled Ivan in on some mundane party details. Orison casually noted that the ex-Marshlander had practically quadrupled down his grat.i.tude earnings in one fell swoop.

Orison was happy for Rithus. At the same time, he was a bit morose because once Rithus completely came into his own, their climbing paths were destined to go separate ways. The young mage had originally held some hope that Rithus wouldn't be ready to strike out on his own before they left this reality but he wasn't so sure anymore.

Two days without proper rest had Orison calling it a night not too long after returning. No one really knew how long it would take to complete the 'raid instance' so everyone else was keen on getting a decent rest in. Orison's last concern before falling asleep was trying to adjust plans for Ivan's inclusion into their group.

***

Orison woke up from the four hour trance-like state his sleeping had turned into a couple hours before dawn. Not wanting to disturb anyone, he made his way outside and logged in a round of training before cleaning up and heading to the canteen. The smell of baking bread and the scent wafting off of the specialty crackers a plump but pleasant looking older woman was breaking into stacks had Orison's mouth watering and stomach grumbling.

He wasn't sure what beastkin the woman was but her human husband had already noticed Orison and headed over to their door. "We usually open at dawn but since we got started a little early ourselves, I don't see harm in letting you take care of your breakfast needs a bit earlier."

Congenially motioning the young mage in, the man talked up a few of their novelty goods until his wife looked at him in annoyance. "If you hadn't indulged your older brother to go looking for that junk to begin with, you wouldn't be so desperate to try unloading some of it now. No one wants any of those bags of beans. Either kind!"

Orison looked them over and realized what he was looking at. He had missed coffee and chocolate for awhile, long before he had even came to this world. Seeing them before him now, he was more than a little ecstatic and overshared on how to make them marketable. In the process of explanation, the wife got excited. In the place where the ones that wouldn't fit on the shelves had been sitting, some had gotten wet a few days prior and had been thrown in an old wine cask presumed to be ruined.

After making sure they hadn't been sitting that way for too long, Orison had the husband roast them. After talking the wife out of some of her precious sugar to be paired with the morning delivery of milk and cream, Orison percolated a pot of each using his alchemy equipment. By the time dawn broke, the morning customers were flaring their noses over unfamiliar but tantalizing aromas.

To satisfy his own desires than to make profit, Orison invested a substantial 500 gold for the purchase of more. Taking his share of the finished beverages with him, along with breakfast, Orison cracked the thermos' and let everyone in his group try a sip of each before letting them decide who wanted what. The only person who seemed to share his love of coffee was Gan who had something similar long ago.

Caught up in their enjoyment, it had slipped everyone's mind that they were supposed to meet Emris at the transporter. After answering a heavy knock, Orison calmed down the irritated man and explained the surprising find, treating the Draconos man and his wife to the scant remainder. Emris was an instant fan of coffee but his wife absolutely despised it. Fortunately, the empty thermos of hot chocolate clutched in a death grip within her hands was filled with another round before they left, opening the opportunity for her husband to splurge on another pot of coffee for himself. With a warning over the jitters that could be caused from drinking too much, they were ready to make their way to the raid instance.

Due to the delay, they ended up stuck in a queue. Since they were only shy of a full eight person team, the first person to arrive decided to join them instead of piecing together a group from the strays waiting for a chance to go. Orison wasn't keen on partnering up with a complete stranger but the man in question just wanted in the doors, he had no intentions of doing anything but mining on the first layer.

After a little discussion, Duran also joined the man since going at anything completely alone was a dangerous move and the earnings for any trip through could double just from having a miner along. It would be a bit unfair to expect the guy that let them skip line to share anything with them and it was expected that someone would make sure he didn't get ganged up on. The biggest reason was that once a person left back out, it wasn't unheard of for a miner that was by himself to get mugged.

Emris explained, "Minimum party for this instance is four people and the limit is eight. Any less than the minimum or more than the max and the portal won't let you through. The biggest difference between this instance and the field is resp.a.w.n rate for creatures. Creatures come back exactly an hour after they died. The standard is six people, two for mining and the four necessary to stand on the pressure plates to open up the last three layers."

After having everyone share their main combat cla.s.s, Emris took the front with Ivan, had Gan and Rithus take flank and had Orison take rear with his wife in the center. The Draconos man explained that the reason for this wasn't simply to provide the most protection for his wife. She was a healer main and needed to have as easy access to everyone as possible. He was a banner man, a halberd wielder, and had the ability to draw unintelligent creatures to himself while giving a buff to everyone's defense through his war cries.

When it was almost time for them to pa.s.s through the portal, Emris said, "Time between when the portal lets another group through is a little over two hours. It might sound like there'd be a good possibility of another group catching up to ours but that's never happened... Each floor has a one hour time limit on it. If you're still on that floor when the time runs out, you die. That means after around forty minutes or so, Duran needs to follow the good man over there back out of the entrance.

"The only other true danger in this place is getting separated. People moving completely alone have been known to mysteriously disappear. As long as the group sticks together and no one rushes into one of the two caverns inside, it's a safe trip. First time runners get fifty gold added to their inventory for just entering and an average run without mined metal being taken into account averages around 200 gold. "There are no gold drops or dismantle opportunities from creatures here. There's just a counter that is totaled together with everyone else's and converted to gold which automatically splits evenly. It doesn't happen often but sometimes the boss drops a few special items. Picking one up means forfeiting your gold but unless it's needed, a person will usually sell it and split up the gold. After talking it over with my wife, we're just here to run you and let you know how it works today. The only thing we'll be taking is what the run gives us at the end."

For the last few minutes before the portal activated with a swirl of condensed magic that looked like flus.h.i.+ng water, Emris checked over everyone's gear and made a few simple suggestions to the way Rithus and Orison was wearing theirs. As soon as they were on the other side, which somewhat felt like being flushed, Emris lead them around to clean up the long furred, rat creatures in the first cavern. After insuring that their numbers were low enough that stragglers would be too timid to approach the man and Duran, Emris lead them to the next layer.

Outside of Emris and his wife, the rest of the group was taken by surprise at how nice and palace-like the second layer was. The entire room was polished marble floors, walls and large support pillars. There wasn't a single sign of life at all aside from their own.

Emris stopped the group from proceeding and said, "Now that we're away from prying ears, let me tell you a few of this place's secrets. I'd appreciate you keeping them to yourselves but it's no large matter. Most groups that run here often figure them out but I don't see any reason to benefit others for no good reason. Certain things that you do here can open up more layers. Do nothing special and there are only three before the plates and three after. We know a way to open two more before and one more after... We'll be waiting here for thirty-nine minutes exactly."

Ivan said casually, "What's the point in doing that if you don't get the nine gems from the first layer?"

Everyone turned to look at the Nunos family member.