The Unwanted Tamer

Stephanie woke up early the next morning, as she usually did, and prepared to start working. She started with stretches so she wouldn't hurt herself while doing the more strenuous activities, like hammering metal. It also helped her with any intricate work as her muscles would be flexible. She finished this rather quickly thanks to her improved body, courtesy of being stone rank. This meant she wouldn't need nearly the amount of time a normal person would but would be just as flexible afterwards.

She grabbed some of the food the maids had left for her as snacks and ate it quickly before entering her forge. She was excited today since she planned on using some of the techniques Gertrude had shown her a few days earlier. She pulled out some cheap copper and started working it in the way she'd been shown. It was almost the same as most other blacksmiths she'd seen but Gertrude did something slightly different. She would hammer the metal before folding it in on itself and repeating this process multiple times. This was when she'd do something different. She'd quench the metal before using a skill to heat her hammer and gently hammering across the entire piece. Stephanie wasn't entirely sure how it affected the metal, but she couldn't deny the final product. She'd gone back the next day and seen the weapon; it was incredible and more durable than similar pieces.

Gertrude claimed that she'd learned it from her father, who'd been her teacher, but also confessed that she'd gotten a skill. It allowed her to accurately discover the problem areas quicker. She also did something else to the piece which she wouldn't explain or show Stephanie but assured her that it was more about the finishing touches than forging. Stephanie believed her and decided to try out the technique on some spare metal. She started by heating the metal up which didn't take long, thanks to the magical nature of a portable forge affecting its flames. Then she got to work hammering and folding the copper in on itself until she was happy with it. After that, she quenched the metal in oil, then used the Mask of Ignition they'd obtained from the Oni in the ruins to heat her hammer. Then the round of gentle hammering began.

This took a while as she needed to be careful of how much force she was using. According to Gertrude, if even one section was hammered too hard or too softly it could ruin the entire thing when done this way. This was due to the temperature difference, if she had to go back to hammer an area, she wouldn't have the same temperature as the first time when she was hammering around it. This would make it easier for the metal to become brittle when quenched again. She spent a couple hours working on this before she was done. She wasn't happy with how it came out overall, but it had been her first attempt, so she tossed it aside.

She was about to grab another piece of copper when her stomach growled, and she realized it was probably time for breakfast. She exited her forge and quickly showered, cleaning the sweat, oil, and general muck off before exiting her room. She was closing her door when she heard a noise from a little way down the hall. It took her a second before realizing it was Fergus' room and she had to do a double take before she understood what, or rather who, she saw. Gaia. Gaia was coming out of Fergus' room, all of her bonds on her, but she had obviously been asleep until recently.

Gaia's hair, which was usually combed through, with at least a hand, was a mess. Stephanie was astounded. Her mind raced, but decided not to let her thoughts spiral before talking to her friend. She, however, didn't hear the other door open nearby and a feminine gasp.

"Gaia?" Titania asked.

"Huh? Yeah, Titania?" Gaia replied sleepily.

"Come here for a moment." Titania stated with a sharp tone.

"Uh, sure. What do you need?" Gaia asked as she slowly approached.

"Oh, nothing. Just need to ask you a few things. Might need to grab my mother as well. So, please come sit for a bit." Titania stated as she guided Gaia into her room.

"Why? Is something wrong?" Gaia asked.

"We'll talk about that in a minute." She replied.

"Ok, then." Gaia replied before falling back to sleep in a chair.

Titania left and had Stephanie stay with Gaia until she returned. She guessed Fergus was about to have a rude awakening and an interrogation to live through. Gaia, however, was happily dozing off for now. Titania and the baroness returned a short while later, looking ready to commit murder. Luckily, they were able to be talked down after Gaia fully woke up and explained what had happened.

According to Gaia, she'd gone to Stephanie to ask to sleep there but she'd been doing something. Then decided on Fergus, since she didn't know where anyone else's rooms were and felt more comfortable with her party members when sleeping in a room with someone. She also explained the sleeping arrangement and subsequent reasoning when Titania seemed to be staring at her. Then, when she woke up, she was cuddled up in Fergus' arms, who was still sleeping. She'd then extricated herself, and her bonds as he was sleeping.

Stephanie laughed. She should have guessed that's what happened, but then again, most people see that situation and assume what happened. Titania and the baroness were happy that nothing happened and apologized to Gaia for the impromptu interrogation. She didn't mind, but did ask them to go easy on Fergus since he'd obviously been worried about her. They agreed and Stephanie led Gaia to the dining room, before hearing a door being slammed open.

It wasn't until an hour later that a red-faced Fergus made it downstairs with an amused baroness and Titania. They'd interrogated him as Stephanie had expected and were happy with what they'd been told. Fergus, however, looked exhausted, embarrassed and somewhat relieved. Stephanie was enjoying her breakfast as they appeared and joined the group. There was silence for a while before the Baron asked his usual question of what everyone's plans were.

No one really had any plans for the day, the only two with an actual plan were Griff and Stephanie who were going to the library to work on deciphering the journal. The others were planning to just walk around and do anything that caught their attention. Thus, Stephanie and Griff left the estate and went straight to the library.

They arrived rather quickly, as it wasn't very far from the Baron's estate, and got started. They'd already finished translating everything but the last few pages, so once it was done all they had left to do was decipher it. Deciphering was the hardest part since it took a while for them to figure out the cipher. This was mainly due to the fact that it was written in multiple ancient languages and would randomly switch between them. There were many times where a word would start in one language, switch to another and then the last letter would be in yet another.

For this very reason, translating it was difficult, but then even when it was translated it would appear to be gibberish. This was when they'd be able to decipher it as it was written using two ciphers that would alternate. One used combinations of letters to indicate specific letters and numbers. The other was weirder since it needed to be translated into numbers which would then indicate the alphabet for the ancient languages. Needless to say, it was annoyingly intricate and difficult to do correctly.

Stephanie enjoyed learning about the languages and translating them, but the ciphers were far less interesting to her. She didn't like how tedious it was to decipher them. It made her head hurt, but Griff seemed to be enjoying them much more than her, so it worked out. He would be deciphering the sections they'd already translated, and she'd be translating the sections they hadn't done yet. This way the work would get done much quicker than if they were both working in the same part.

They spent most of the day like this, but she noticed Griff getting progressively disturbed as he deciphered the text. The text they'd already done was quite disturbing already; it was the journal of someone known as the King of the Monsters after all. The beginning had been rather normal, like a normal journal, but partway through the Eternal Lord had started to go insane. He started to see his companions as dead weight and eventually killed them, and that was the least disturbing part of the information. With this journal likely going all the way up until his failed ascension, she wasn't sure what to expect but didn't expect any of it to be good.

While she was thinking, Griff couldn't take it anymore and put his quill down before taking deep breaths. He looked pale, so Stephanie hugged him and spoke.

"What's wrong? Is it that bad?" She asked.

It took him a moment to answer. "Yes. It gets really bad by the end. Luckily, most of the information pertaining to the Tamer class is in the beginning, with small bits here and there throughout. I think I can compile it all, so she doesn't have to hear about everything he did. It's deplorable what he's done and now he's back in the world. I think Gaia blames herself for that too, so knowing all of the horrible things he's done would only make it worse."

"We'll need to let someone know though. Do you want to let the Baron or the King know? Or rather the Hunter's League would probably be better, right?" She asked.

"I'll ask the Baron. He'll know who best to tell, but honestly it should probably be all of them." Griff replied.

"Do you want to stop? I know you like to finish things when you've started them, and I think you only have a few more pages to decipher but I think you need to think about something else." Stephanie asked.

He thought for a moment. "Yeah. I'll stop for today; there's enough horror in what I've deciphered to last a lifetime. I'll finish it later. I mean there can't be anything that's much worse than what I've already read, right?" He said.

Stephanie just gave him a flat look.

"I just jinxed it, didn't I?" He stated.

Stephanie just nodded as she collected all of their papers together and got ready to leave. Griff sighed at this realization, and confirmation. After they finished gathering their papers and putting their books up, they left the library to see it was mid afternoon. They'd gotten to the library a little after dawn, so they'd been there most of the day. Stephanie steered them towards a food stall, and they got lunch before returning to the Baron's estate to drop off their load.

The pair then started back out into the city, Stephanie leading the way. They just walked for a while before finding a park where they decided to sit and relax. When they did, they both took deep breaths of the fresh air and sighed. The journal took a lot of brainpower to figure out, for many reasons, but the actual content was making that much harder. Griff took the brunt of this aspect since he was the one actually deciphering what it said.

She hadn't thought about it much since he'd been mostly alright with what he'd discovered, but he'd recently been tight lipped and standoffish. This started a few days ago, so it was a more recent development. She liked that he wanted to protect Gaia from whatever was making him feel disturbed, since she would do the same thing in his position. The only thing was that she wasn't sure how Gaia would take it if she found out about what they were hiding from her. She wasn't going to bring it up now since they were relaxing and trying to get their minds off of it.

Realizing what she was doing, she pushed the thoughts aside and tried to enjoy the moment. Griff was beside her, his eyes closed as he leaned back on the bench. He was handsome, especially when the sun was shining through the leaves. The lights and shadows dancing over his form. His shaggy brown hair was at the mercy of gravity, dangling behind his head, as he looked genuinely relaxed for the first time in a few days. She wasn't going to say anything and instead leaned back and closed her eyes as well, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her skin.

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She woke up a few hours later, the sun was starting to dip closer and closer to the horizon. She didn't know when she'd fallen asleep but had obviously been extremely comfortable and relaxed, since she had. She looked over at Griff and saw he was still napping. She let him rest for a while longer before deciding it was time to head back to the estate. She tried waking him up, since he was usually a light sleeper as all of their party was, but he wouldn't wake up. After trying a few more times, she gave up and just picked him up. The best part was how she decided to carry him. A princess carry, since he was a Sleeping Pretty? Sleeping Beauty? She wasn't a hundred percent sure what Gaia had called the character in the story she'd told them, but she silently laughed at the thought. She had just gotten in the Baron's door when Griff awoke. Unluckily for him, all of his friends were there to see him.

Fergus and Gaia were smiling as they quietly laughed and giggled at the situation. It took Griff a moment to realize what was going on and he nearly jumped out of Stephanie's arms. She didn't let him though; he was much weaker than her as it was anyway. Stephanie saw him come to this realization as he just sighed, leaned back and accepted his fate. At this, she couldn't help but laugh herself. When she looked back, she realized he was hiding his face but could see the tips of his ears were red.

She stayed there like that for a few more moments before letting him down. He swiftly took the instant to sprint away from everyone, likely back to his room. She stayed and talked with her friends for a bit. Fergus and Gaia had stayed in the estate for most of the day and only went out for a walk around midafternoon. The Baron and his wife went and had tea with the King and Queen before going on a shopping spree. She didn't see any of the members of Flora, so she guessed they were still out and about. Delilah went on a walk and stopped at a few restaurants and Freya went to the public gardens again.

She told Gaia that they were close to finishing the deciphering and translating of the journal. At this news her friend's face lit up. She let her know they should be done either tomorrow or the day after, as long as there were no problems that popped up. After relaying this, Stephanie headed towards her room but stopped at Griff's for a moment. She knocked and apologized when he opened the door.

"Hey, sorry for what happened downstairs."

"Don't worry about it. It was just a bit embarrassing, nothing else. What caused the situation in the first place though?" He asked.

"We fell asleep on the bench in the park, and I woke up to the sun setting. I figured we should be heading back to the estate. You wouldn't wake up no matter what I did so I picked you up. Then you woke up just as we entered the mansion." She replied.

"Really? I can't normally sleep out in the open like that let alone sleep that deeply." He said.

"Same. We've been deciphering the journal for a while, and you seem to not be sleeping well recently. My guess is that we got comfortable enough and our weariness caught up with us." She explained.

He didn't respond for a few moments. "That's plausible." He finally said.

"Also, I wanted to talk to you about the info in the journal."

"What about it?" He asked hesitantly.

"I don't know what it says since you're the one actually deciphering it, but I think we should tell Gaia all of it." She stated bluntly.

"No." He immediately responded before taking a deep breath and speaking again. "Why do you think so?"

"We both know it would be to protect her, right?" After seeing his nod, she continued. "Well, I understand why you don't want to. I'd normally suggest the same, but I don't think she'd take it well if she found out we'd been hiding it from her. She wouldn't necessarily view it as us trying to protect her. She's extremely understanding and would probably forgive us, but I'd rather she finds out from us. Then we can all figure it out together from the beginning."

Griff took a few minutes to digest her words before speaking again. "Fair enough. It's sound logic and something I'd been thinking about anyway. She's the one who's most involved with this being, even though it is a forced connection. I agree, but I think we should just give her the info about her Tamer class. Then have her join us when we relay the other info to the Baron and Freya. Does that sound alright?" He asked.

"Yes, it does." She replied.

After this, Stephanie returned to her room where she sat down for a few minutes. She was just relaxing as she thought about the day. It had been a good day overall, but slightly worrying since Griff seemed to keep uncovering more and more disturbing information about the Eternal Lord. She decided to work in the forging technique Gertrude had shown her to clear her mind, so she opened her portable forge and grabbed a chunk of her practice copper. Not even a minute later the sound of the forge could be heard as she began working it to heat the metal. By the time dinner came around, she'd only been able to attempt it once more, leaving her with a semi-satisfactory result.

She still wasn't sure what she was doing wrong but the result was slightly better than without using the technique. The main downside was that the item was slightly malformed from messing up the cold hammering. Either way she was starting to see some improvement, and when she could reliably get satisfactory results, she'd begin trying to incorporate it into her own technique. That would take much longer than just forging it correctly based off Gertrude's method.

She stopped forging and went to eat dinner with everyone. Dinner passed by rather quickly with everyone chatting about their day or just eating. Griff didn't talk much unless someone spoke to him directly, while Stephanie chatted with Gaia who was telling her about the new gardening tools she'd bought a few days ago. From what Stephanie understood, the new tools were much sturdier than Gaia already had and she finally used them today. The Baron had apparently set aside a small area in the garden for her to use while they were here and she'd decided to finally use it, now that she had new tools to try.

Stephanie listened intently, as it was hard not to find it interesting by how excited and animated Gaia was talking about it. She didn't know much about gardening and didn't really have an interest in it, but Gaia somehow made it interesting. The thing that caught Stephanie's attention in the tale was that Gaia personally worked the land. Normally she had Malachite or one of her bonds do it, but she did it herself for some reason today. The way Gaia said it was what caught her attention though.

"I worked it myself! I wasn't sure if I could, due to the whole no damage thing, but digging and tilling don't count. It might be because it's not actually hurting the ground, maybe?" Gaia said.

"Wait. You've never tried digging the ground or tilling it yourself? Do you know if you can do anything else like that?" Stephanie asked.

"No, I hadn't. In the training camp, the land was already prepared for us, and Malachite enjoys helping me, so I never saw a need to try. Also, it's not the safest thing to do when you can't see what your doing, I hit my hand at least twice while digging. I do know that after it's been tilled I could dig in it, but I didn't know I could do it all myself. As for other things I know I can't put a needle through leather or cloth." Gaia explained.

Stephanie's mind raced. What else could Gaia do? She guessed the reason she could till and did the land was because she wasn't actually damaging it but instead just changing its shape. Dirt didn't have a set shape; it would just end up packed together or be loose like in fields. If she tried to do the same with stone Stephanie guessed nothing would happen though. This led her to suggest Gaia to try it. After dinner was over, Stephanie found a large rock for Gaia to try it on. Nothing happened, like Stephanie expected.

This led to Stephanie coming to a conclusion about Gaia's inability to deal damage. It worked on anything that wouldn't normally get injured, break or be damaged in any way. However, if the thing was malleable and never had a set shape, she could do pretty much whatever she wanted to it. Stephanie relayed this hypothesis to Gaia, and it made her happy. That meant she could do all of her gardening herself if she wanted to. Stephanie tried explaining that she might be able to do more than just that, but Gaia didn't hear anything past that.

Stephanie just sighed since she knew Gaia wasn't listening anymore. Gaia had a wide smile at that news, and Stephanie couldn't help but smile at her friend's happiness over something many would call trivial. Gaia was just happy she could do something completely by herself, she didn't have to have help doing it. It was also great that it was something she thoroughly enjoyed. Stephanie returned to her room after Gaia finished talking about her plans for the small garden, she didn't want to do much but wanted to do almost everything herself, now that she knew she could.

Stephanie went back to forging when she entered her room. She continued working on Gertrude's technique and by the time she decided to go to bed, she could make ingots that were barely satisfactory almost every time. She figured she needed at least one more day and she'd try it on a less malleable metal. She quickly showered and laid in her bed. She fell asleep soon after.

The next morning started rather normally but grew chaotic after a few hours. She woke up as usual and decided to forge for a bit. She succeeded in making a few ingots using the new technique before switching to tinkering. This was where something went wrong. She had been trying to make a smaller version of her rifle, but due to the smaller size, she'd missed a critical point. The explosion needed to be smaller so when she test fired it in her forge, the entire weapon exploded with a massive boom.

Within a minute every person was in her room, weapons raised and at the ready searching for an intruder. When they noticed Stephanie, most were surprised but started laughing soon after. When she looked at herself in a mirror, she saw black spots along her arms and face along with chunks of twisted metal in her hair. It was also slightly singed, and parts of her clothes were burned. She laughed a bit herself.

"Stephanie, are you okay?" Gaia asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I miscalculated how strong to make the explosion for the smaller version of my rifle." She replied.

"I can see that." Griff said with a hint of amusement after he realized she was unharmed.

"Sorry for making everyone panic." Stephanie apologized.

"It's alright. Just be careful." Douglas said to her as he gave her a hug.

After a few similar replies, everyone left her room. The Baron stated he'd ask for breakfast to be started since everyone was already awake. Once everyone was gone, she moved towards her bathroom. She checked herself over after undressing and only found a single shard of metal that had punctured her shoulder. She quickly removed it before showering and then heading down to breakfast. Today, she was going with Griff to the library again. They were planning to finish deciphering the journal today.

The pair arrived at the library and quickly got to work. They'd been doing this for the last few days, so they knew what books they needed and where to find them. After retrieving everything they found an empty table and began working. Stephanie was helping with the deciphering today since she'd finished translating the book yesterday. She wasn't nearly as quick as Griff at doing this, but she wanted to help.

It took them a large chunk of the day to decipher it. Mostly because Stephanie needed help in doing her section, and Griff was too nice to just do it himself. He instead helped her with what she was struggling with. This caused it to take longer but Griff was happy with it, so Stephanie didn't complain. She liked how he was when he was teaching, anyway.

Once they finished deciphering the last bits, they put the sections together and were horrified with what they discovered. It made Griff sick to his stomach and Stephanie was deeply disturbed herself. The last section was pertaining to his plan for his ascension. It was a very detailed and comprehensive plan, but the contents were insane. The Eternal Lord had to be insane to come up with and implement the plan.

Having the information completely deciphered and compiled, they gathered all of the papers and pushed them inside the journal before slamming it shut. They hoped no one had seen what they uncovered. Griff quickly cleaned up and returned the books before they made a beeline for the Baron's estate. They arrived in mere minutes since they nearly sprinted from the moment they left the library. Had Gaia not been waiting for them in the main hall, they would have forgotten to grab her before talking to the Baron.

"Did you guys finish it?" Gaia started hesitantly, before sensing their rapid movement and rigid posture. "Actually, are you guys okay?"

"Not really. But we did finish deciphering it. We have the information about the Tamer class, separated from all of the other information. We're going to the Baron since the other stuff is bad and honestly horrifying. If you want to hear that stuff, come with us. We figured the Baron would know who would need to be informed." Griff explained as he continued walking.

"Wha-? Ok. I'll grab Fergus!" Gaia replied worriedly.

Stephanie was clutching the journal, with all of their papers inside, in a white-knuckle grip. She didn't loosen it until they were inside the Baron's office, with everyone there. They locked the door behind them and Griff made a magic circle that made them room soundproof. Those that were present included the Baron, Baroness, Delilah, and all of Fauna. These were the people that knew about the events on the last floor of the ruins of Xerios. Flora knew as well, but were out of the estate at the time.

"You said you uncovered information you thought we should know?" The Baron asked.

"Yes. We finished deciphering the journal, and a lot of it is bad. We also have information on the Tamer Class which I think we'll start with. After that is the stuff we figured you should know, since you would know who to relay it to." Stephanie replied.

"Very well, please tell us from the beginning." The Baron stated.

"Let's start with information about your class Gaia." Griff stated before he began relaying their discoveries.