The guild hall felt like a smithy for paper—stamps ringing, quills rasping, coin counting like nails poured into a bucket. Bandaged fighters dozed against pillars while Ade's apprentices moved through the benches with clean hands and the authority of gauze.
Kelda read Beta's sheet twice, then thumped the stamp with a little extra soul. "Payout," she said, sliding the ledger around. "Campaign stipend, one gold. Captain bounty, forty silver. Fourteen confirmed goblins for your lane—forty-two silver. Hazard hold, ten silver." She flicked her quill at Taro's cheek, where road dust made its own map. "Spend it where it lets you breathe tomorrow."
Trixie fussed with his glove liner, smoothing the place it had rubbed his knuckle raw. He didn't flinch when her fingers lingered; she didn't apologize for lingering. They just exchanged a look that let the day ease half a notch.
He counted under his breath, wrote the math on the back of a folded notice. "With the forty-four silver left from yesterday, that puts us at two gold, thirty-six silver."
Niya ghosted past, already half turned toward the door. "Leather first. Then bravery," she said, like a parting blessing she didn't believe in but liked the sound of.
The leatherer's fitting room had a chalk mirror and the peculiar quiet of places that believe in measuring twice. The proprietor circled Trixie with a strip of marked rawhide and a grunt for every number that pleased him. Making notes as he went while Taro checked the racks in the store beyond the fitting stand.
"Basic cuirass and fauld," he said, laying brown over linen. "Short skirt for the hips. Eighty silver. Boots with a real sole—twelve. Grip gloves—eight. Personal buckler—steel boss, leather face—sixteen. Sword and scabbard—sixty and four."
He turned to Taro. "Pauldrons with strap-cross—twenty-eight. Fighter's face guard with skull wrap—sixty."
Trixie's ears tilted when he said "personal." She glanced at Taro, he gave her a smile of approval, she then nodded at the clerk. "Register the set to my plate, please," she said.
Taro beat the clerk to the nod. "Her property," he said. "File it."
A moment of stillness that felt like a small hinge getting the oil it deserved. The clerk wrote with neat care.
They tried the fit—Trixie rolling shoulders until the cuirass stopped arguing, the buckler strap rotated a thumb so it wouldn't chew her wrist on a hard parry. Taro slipped the face guard on; the world narrowed to a slit and then widened again when he learned where to look. He breathed; the skull wrap didn't pinch his ribs' story. If anything the story gained a firm foundation with it on.
"Order?" the leatherer asked, quill poised.
Taro looked at the totals on his scrap, then at Trixie in the brown leather that made her look sturdier than yesterday and just as young. "Frontline gets the buckler first," he said. "We buy Trixie's full kit. I'll earn mine this afternoon."
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it and reached up to tighten the strap on his mitt by one hole. "Then I won't waste it," she said, soft, like a promise she intended to keep for a long time.
He adjusted her gorget by a thumb so it wouldn't rub when she turned. His knuckles brushed her throat where the collar sat. The room got a fraction quieter for exactly a heartbeat. They both looked at the floor, then at the chalk mirror, and the moment learned how to behave in public.
They paid. –1g 80s. Purse: 56s.
They gave the armor ten minutes in the courtyard to start belonging to the body it had to keep.
"In two—out six," Trixie called, buckler rising on Taro's exhale. Three parry-ripostes, a neat shield-shoulder that moved him exactly one brick and no more. He tapped her buckler with a glove. "Clean," he said. She pretended not to swell a little taller.
"Now we go earn mine," he added.
She tilted her head. "Target?"
"Thirty-two silver to cover the gap, plus ten for oil and strap. Forty-five cushion. F2 if it's steady. Dire pelts if they want to be generous." He smiled under the guard. "Boring."
"Good," she said. "I make better decisions when life is unexciting."
The dungeon met them with cool breath and stone that had learned their steps. F1 gave up wolves with the efficiency of habit: Snap Step → Surge when the exhale invited; hooks when it didn't. Trixie's buckler no longer bit her hand; her low-line cut stopped wandering and became a line.
They took the spiral with Niya's old map in their heads. F2 smelled faintly like bad ideas—sharp and chemical.
"Alchemist," Trixie said, wrinkling her nose.
"Flank," Taro answered.
They skirted the bench by its shadows, not its lure. The goblin there looked up too late; Counter-Tempo stole the half-beat he'd been saving. Short cross on the jaw hinge, sleep delivered neat. The token stamped with a crooked retort went into Taro's pouch. A rack of phials rattled when Trixie lifted them and did not break—she tied them to a hook on her harness and matched his count with a smile he saw in the corner of his eye.
Wargs didn't show; wolves did, ten of them across two loops that respected the map more than the men. One tried a high finish at his shoulder; Weave Engine braided his head movement with steps, and a body-head ladder made a sound that was becoming familiar.
Trixie's Porter Brace kept packs quiet through a narrow and pulled Ade's old bandage from a pouch when his own wrap threatened to unravel. "You mark like a monk," she murmured, fixing the knot. "You file like a clerk," he murmured back, and had to look at the floor again.
By early afternoon, their sacks felt like an answer.
Combat Adaptation Registered.
Martial God's Champion — Blessed Growth:+2 to all stats.
Trixie — Buckler Guard (Novice → I): timing refined against high-low feints.
They left into light that had the good manners to be warm.
Kelda thumped numbers with that look she got when a day had decided not to insult her.
"Four dire," she counted, "Forty-eight silver. Twelve wolves, Thirty-Six. Alchemist token, forty. Phials… four." She slid the purse across. "One hundred and twenty-eight silver. Try not to spend it on helmets you won't wear."
Taro touched the face guard and didn't apologize for wanting it. They crossed to the leatherer with coin that sounded like progress. –88s for pauldrons and guard; the rest he left in his pouch with oil and strap money stacked where his hand could find it without eyes.
The pauldrons sat clean over his shoulders; the guard hugged his temples and cheeks, leaving only hair to the wind. He tilted and learned where his peripheral began and ended. He breathed and felt the wrap give the breath back to him, not take it.
Trixie checked the pawl on his shoulder strap and pushed until it clicked. "There," she said, something pleased and domestic and soldierly sharing the same breath. He lifted her buckler and found the strap loosened half a hole by sweat; he snugged it, careful as a luthier tuning a string.
They both pretended their hands hadn't just learned a few new liberties.
They ate at a corner table under a window that had chosen to be clean today. The stew was the usual miracle of cheap bones turned into something patient. Trixie wrote a maintenance list on a small slate: oil, thread, spare strap, liner cloth, buckler edge wax. Her tail tapped the bench twice when she thought she'd spelled "paraffin" wrong, then relaxed when the clerk confirmed she hadn't.
Taro lifted the face guard with a knuckle. She could see his smile. That was enough.
"To boring victories," he said, raising his water.
"To boring victories," she echoed, glass touching glass with a small clink that felt like an agreement they weren't ready to name.
On the way out, a notice fresh with chalk caught his eye: F2 instability—possible F3 breach; alchemist activity rising. Niya, passing with the wind still holding her cloak, glanced at the board, then at his new guard.
"If it deepens," she said, "we'll need a monk to talk to a door that doesn't like being opened."
He touched the leather across his cheek. The world narrowed and widened in the space of a breath. "We'll bring the right problems to buy," he said.
Trixie's tail betrayed her twice, tapping once when he said we, and again when his eyes stayed a moment too long on the way the cuirass sat at her waist. She looked away—smiling—and the day decided to end while it was ahead.
Status — Taro
Class: Monk ITitle: Martial God's Champion (SSS)HP:600 base (10× END 60) → 1100 effective (END 110 during combat/training)Ki:53
Base Stats(end of Ch.8 → post-dungeon adaptation)
STR: 60 → 62
END: 58 → 60
AGI: 56 → 58
SPIRIT: 37 → 39
MIND: 34 → 36
LUCK: 33 → 35
Ki: 51 → 53
Effective Physicals(SSS +50 in combat/training)
STR:112END:110AGI:108
Skills & Techniques
Ki Soul (A): +20 STR/END/AGI/Ki (permanent); Full-Body Ki Enhancement (toggle); Ki Guard (exhale dampen).
Guard Melt I • Centerline Surge (Novice) • Weave Engine I • Snap Step (Novice)
Counter-Tempo III • Load-Bearing Breath II • Rooted Frame (Novice) • Rope-Cut Step (Novice)
Formation Breach (Novice)
Team Passives:Call-and-Breath I, Cover Call I (with Trixie)
Trixie — Updates
Buckler Guard I(timing refined) • Shield Shoulder (Novice) • Porter Brace I
New kit fitted: Leather cuirass+fauld, boots, gloves, personal buckler, arming sword(registered to her plate).
Gear (new/updated)
Taro: Leather pauldrons, fighter's face guard + skull wrap; padded cuirass, bracers, boots, reinforced mitts.
Trixie: Full leather set; buckler; arming sword; porter harness.
Ledger
Start of day: 2g 36s
Buy Trixie kit: −1g 80s → 56s
Hunt turn-in: +128s → 1g 84s
Buy Taro pauldrons + face guard: −88s → 98s
Supplies (oil/strap/wax):–12s(planned) → ~86 remaining
Next goals: House balance; cushion for repairs; watch F2/F3 bulletin.
Planner (tomorrow)
Dawn: light wall drills, armor steps, breath ladder (maintenance).
Late morning: F2 short loop (avoid overuse of Surge).
Midday: landlord—gutter/ shutter check, balance.
Evening: kit care; review instability notes; check on Beta tallies.
And because some victories deserve it, they took the long way back to the inn—past the baker's warm door, under the bell's patient shadow—saying nothing important and meaning every word.