Rob X Punzel ~ Twenty!

Dusk had fully settled in by the time the door to Damage Dealers X-L was opened for the second time that day. The magical deadbolts came free, and the door parted to allow the golden-haired young thief to step out of the building, twirling a new pair of battle scissors in either hand. “Got what I wanted and made a new friend. Even secured a new source of income. Nice.”

Goldie waved over her shoulder at Xander, who was staring at her through his shop window, shaking his head in disgruntlement—though she knew that hid a newfound sense of admiration for her. After supplying him with an arm's length of slashing-immune hair, the man had quickly completed the finishing touches on a previously made peak Masterwork short sword, using the material to bind the hilt with a rough grip made of golden hair.

Pearlescent silver light had filled the shop, only contained within the walls thanks to the magical protections put in place to stop people from snooping on his work. After celebrating their advancement, Xander had immediately gotten to work on the battle scissors she had commissioned. Then he tried to press the weapon into her hands, citing their deal, but had been utterly flabbergasted as she refused to take them for free.

“After all,” she’d told him, “I only get one set for free. When these don't do it for me anymore, I think I'll take you up on the nifty version you described earlier. You know? Adds extra force, huge durability, as well as sharpness enchantments? That should get me through a few years until I have to find something new.”

Leaving the bags of silver coins on the counter to make sure the scissors were paid for, she’d sauntered out of the shop with a bright smile on her face. 

Now, as she hurriedly walked out of the artisan’s district against the flow of traffic—people were swarming to some massive party, according to the gossip flowing around her—Goldie walked through the checkpoint into the citizen’s district. Once out of the line of sight of any guards, she went back to continuously twirling her scissors around to get used to their balance. “One in each hand or an oversized version… that's a new challenge. I love it.”

Without thinking, she pressed both scissors together, and the grips melded slightly—shifting the configuration of the entire setup until it appeared as though she had a pair of machetes crossed in front of her. The battle shears glowed a faint blue, the magical sharpness coming into effect and snapping her out of her reverie. Goldie pulled the handles wide, twisting them in opposite directions to revert the shears back into a double pair of scissors and looked around surreptitiously to see if anyone had witnessed her mistake.

Letting out a sigh of relief, she stowed the scissors, just as her eyes landed on an unobtrusive, plain building. “Would you look at that? The Class Shrine… and I just so happened to have need of it.”

Stepping up to the door, Goldie was immediately body blocked by a glaring guard, who took one look at her patchwork clothes and gave a firm, disapproving jerk of his head, gesturing for her to leave without saying a word. Just as silently, she gently tossed a small stack of five silver coins in the air, fully capturing his attention. Goldie dropped two of them into his hand, holding the others flat in her palm as she edged around the man, to show she wasn't trying to put them away, but would be instead paying him once she left.

The guard watched her noiselessly move to the shrine, where she placed her hand against the small white plinth. 

Codex Arcane Ledger access requested.

C.A.L. is assessing… requirements for Breakthrough have been fulfilled!

Checking all system merits.

Basic Class:

Basic Skill: 10/10.

Advanced Skill: 10/10.

Breakthrough Skill: 10/10

Total: 30/30.

Advanced Class:

Basic Skill: 10/10.

Advanced Skill: 10/10.

Total: 20/20.

Bonus points

System merit (Unique): Child Prodigy (Achieve Breakthrough in Basic Class before 18th birthday) +20.

…System merit application deferred by outside influence! 

Generating Advanced Class Breakthrough Skill. Skill generated!

Breakthrough Skill: Bad Hair Yester-Morrow: Level 1/10.

Bad Hair Yester-Morrow is a continuous passive skill formed due to the user’s hair deciding it wants to have fun with its pet. Should an attack approach the user, and the user is unable to defend or avoid the attack, the user's hair will automatically [minimally] envelop the user in a protective hairball. After the user's hair has become immune to a specific type of damage at any rank, it can be infused with a same-rank elemental version of the immunity for [2.5*skill level] seconds every ten minutes. 

Once an hour, when the user’s hair extends to cover a barrier, the user can generate a single-use temporal trapdoor, allowing the user and whatever is in the user’s hair to step [.1*skill level] seconds in the past, appearing on the other side of the barrier as if they had always been there. Because of the intense magic imbued within the hair, when the temporal trapdoor is not on cooldown, the ends of each strand of hair exist in the astral plane, allowing the user to [minimally] interact with incorporeal energies.

The user’s hair takes pride in its ability to capture and store objects, able to hide and hold objects totaling up to a maximum of [10*skill level]% of the volume of the user’s hair. Finally, as the hair saw how pleased the user was with being able to use it as a component in crafting, it can now serve as a [minimally] effective substitute for any single component in an alchemical recipe up to the Legendary rank.

Requirement to advance to level 2: Use your hair as both offense and defense in a battle where your life is on the line.

Coming back to herself, Goldie blinked rapidly as she watched yet another Mythical rank ability take form. Before she could think over the implications of all of the new modifiers, she needed to escape from the cramped room. The guard was now fully blocking the door, expectant gaze locked on the coins in her hand. Remembering the last time she’d been at a shrine, how the headmistress had handled the situation, Goldie decided to be a bit more polite.

Making sure the guard had a clear line of sight to the coins, she stacked them on the small plinth and stepped away, circling as widely as possible toward the door. Since she wasn't watching the silver, if he took his eyes off of it, the coins would be whisked away to keep the shrine in pristine condition. Used to this sort of bribe, the guard simply smirked and stepped forward to collect his small windfall as she dashed out the now-unprotected door. 

As soon as she was out on the street, Goldie let her tension melt away. “Silent interactions are the best type. I don't bother him, he doesn't bother me, we move on with our lives having gotten what we want. Now… I've got to figure out this new skill. Hair, this looks awesome, even if I’m not exactly happy that you called me your pet. Let's go through this piece by piece.”

She looked at the first modifier, slightly leery. “It’ll cover me in a hairball? If this is anything like what happens when it starts to rain, and my head is suddenly trapped in a dense cloud of hair… no, wait. This would actually be a pretty good defense, especially if someone’s swinging a sword or a knife at me. A hammer even. Perfect impact reduction, and now a Perfect immunity against slashing damage. Of course, both of those are not magical damage, but that’s still pretty powerful.”

“Infusing with an elemental version of an affinity.” Goldie pondered the phrasing, but as there was no further information, she could only try it out. “My highest immunity is against slashing damage, go… hair slashing damage infusion!” 

Nothing happened, causing a slight pout to pucker her lips, so she tried again, this time focusing intently on the effect she was attempting to create. As Goldie wasn't certain what it should actually look or feel like, she simply controlled her hair to lash out at a wall while focusing on the idea of ‘slashing’. When that didn't work, she took a deep breath and simply tried to listen to her skill. She remained still, sinking deeper into her thoughts, before finally letting out a soft whisper, “Bad Hair Yester-Morrow, Elemental Infusion of Slashing.”

ShHHrrk

The air screamed as it was torn asunder. All around her, hair-thin cuts through the cobblestone road appeared, reducing it to gravel. Her usually golden hair flashed a steely silver, and the thief’s jaw dropped as it cut through the wall she had targeted as if the stone wasn't there… then it was done: two and a half seconds having sped by. There was a shocking amount of damage to the area around her, punctuated by the building she was next to starting to lean toward the street. 

Even before it could collapse, Goldie felt a chill as the back of her shirt fluttered to the ground as cloth confetti. “Abyss!”

She ran down the street, away from the noise and imploding building, clutching at her shirt to make sure the rest of it didn't fly away. Goldie kept going until she had managed to run a safe distance away from the extreme property damage. Getting farther with each step, she ignored the alarm being raised behind her and moved to the next modifier, now far more enthusiastic about the potential of this new skill. “All of that damage was done in less than three seconds! I'll have to get the timing down, but… by the system, this is all but a combat skill now! Thanks for not cutting me up, hair.”

There was no reply. This was expected. If a reply had come, she would’ve been quite concerned. 

“Let me see, let me see… try the trap door later, since it has an hour cooldown. I'm not sure how to interact with the astral plane… or even what that is, but since the trap door isn’t on cooldown, it should be interacting with it right now?” Goldie inspected the ends of her hair but saw nothing different from the usual. “Okay, that's another one we're going to have to figure out another time. Storing objects? Don't I already store objects in you sometimes?”

Goldie held up her new pair of battle scissors, placing them against a simple, single curl of her hair. “Store that for me?”

Her eyes went wide as the scissors were slurped into her tresses, as though vanishing into a sack. With the very small amount of hair in her hand, it was impossible for the scissors to be hidden away. “How do I get them back?”

The very ends of the scissors reappeared, and she grabbed the handle and pulled them out of… nowhere. Swallowing hard, simply because she was salivating so much, Goldie's eyes danced as she thought of the myriad of ways she could apply this to her thievery. “I'll never be caught red-handed! Weight isn't an issue? It's all about the volume of my hair… and of course I just cut it all down. I won’t be doing that again.”

Her hair fluttered around joyously at the declaration, prompting Goldie to let out a deep, hearty chuckle as she emptied her pockets of her few remaining coins and scissors, then walked along, completely unencumbered while still holding her shirt in place. “I'm going to add some absolutely ridiculous things into my hair, just so I can pull them out randomly and mess with Chay. Now, this last one… I can replace any alchemical component with my hair? I'm either going to have to make a new friend or never, ever let anyone figure this out.”

As she rounded the corner, Goldie froze, coming to a complete stop as she stared at a full squad of guards stationed at the checkpoint between districts. Trying not to appear suspicious, she shifted her direction and walked down the road, merely casting curious glances at the group as any passerby would. As surreptitiously as possible, she looked up and around, noting additional guards stationed up on top of buildings. “The thieves’ road is blocked off tonight… what happened?”

A major hurdle for the thieves had always been how each district in the ringed city was separated by thick, magic-imbued walls. Every checkpoint was set up at the gates, which she had never seen closed. The thieves’ road could only exist because of how construction had abutted the stone walls, and grappling hooks existed. The actual construction was well maintained via stone mages employed by the kingdom, meaning there were no weaknesses, no cracks someone could slip through, and no way to leave ropes in place. Every illegal crossing meant real effort. 

Just before deciding to risk going through the checkpoint anyway, Goldie’s eyes sparkled as she remembered, “Even if I can’t walk back normally, I do have a new option.”

Over the years, she’d become intimately familiar with the city. Walking for another block, she slipped into an alley in the citizen’s district. Glancing around, she noticed a clothing line strung up on the second floor of a house, too high for anyone to easily grab. That wasn't a problem for her. One of the shirts pulled itself off the line, floating through the air into her outstretched hand as she directed her hair’s Minor Telekinesis. 

A quick change into a clean, sturdy shirt later, she was slinking through the no-man’s land around the wall and pressing herself against it. Allowing her hair to fan out as much as it wanted, Goldie concentrated, knowing there was no other way home that night. Trusting her hair, she leaned back against the unyielding stone, murmuring the portion of her skill she was attempting to activate.

“Bad Hair Yester-Morrow, Temporal Trapdoor.” 

She didn't see exactly what happened, but instead of slamming her head against the dense defense, Goldie stumbled backward, now facing the wall. For a moment, she was confused as to why it had gotten so filthy, only to realize she was now out of the citizen’s district. “It worked!”

“Hey.” A voice called out from right behind her, causing Goldie to let out a yelp and spin around. Her hair curled around her hands, and when it moved away, the thief realized her battle scissors had been deposited in her palms. For a long, tense moment, she stared at the man standing in the alley with her, who seemed very reluctant to say another word. “This might be a lot to ask someone I don’t know, but… can you do that again? I can't be found in this district.”

“Wait… I do know you.” Goldie slowly straightened up, though she didn't relax her death grip on her weapons. The man looked absolutely stricken at her words, and his eyes went wide with fear as turned to run. 

“You're the other benefactor of the orphanage.” The man froze as Goldie continued speaking. “If it was anyone else, I'd say absolutely not. But for you? I think you've earned some help. It’ll take a while, and I can't guarantee it’ll work. I just came from the Class Shrine.”