“That may be true, but why would that stop us running together? I don’t have to use Skills. In fact, I prefer not to. [Double Step] and [Quick Movement] might be great for long distances, but they make me far too tired to do whenever I feel like it. So, that run?”
“Precisely. There are rare skills you can get like [Double Step], and not-so-rare ones. For instance, almost every [Warrior] is going to get [Thick Skin] if they go for close-range combat sooner or later. But they might get it at Level 5, or Level 50. Well—not Level 50.”
“Good guess! Yeah, I got my [Double Step] skill at Level 30. And of course sometimes you can learn a rare skill, but that takes training and some luck. I suppose if you had a class you could learn something that allowed you to move faster but…”
“[Double Step]. It’s one of the core skills most Couriers have. That and [Quick Movement]—those were the ones Valceif had, remember? If you get those, people say you’re already two thirds of the way to becoming a Courier!”
“Hardly. I’ve been staying away from Celum on purpose. Ever since she got the [Double Step] Skill she’s been taking away the jobs from all us City Runners. We can barely find any work. I tried talking to her, but—she wouldn’t listen.”
But he was no Courier, or even a high-level City Runner with a fantastic ability like, say, [Double Step] which could literally double his running speed in theory. Fals could only run at normal, mortal speeds. He was a Runner, and he delivered messages, packages, anything that people would pay him for.
“I was just saying that if we can see the tracks, we might be able to tell what kind of movement Skill it is. It sounds like he’s propelling himself forwards, not [Double Step] or anything else. That’s a Skill that moves faster on flat ground, maybe.”
Which was terrible, and a good reason to fire the [Driver]. In fact, as the City Runners of Toremn would soon find out, Persua had known many unkind and unfair people before. Why—she might now be a Courier-candidate thanks to her [Double Step] Skill, which allowed her to literally run twice as fast, but that was a reward for years of work.
The as-yet unnamed Persua had the fastest and most enduring Skill in [Double Step], in theory, but her stamina and speed weren’t there yet. She, uh…also wasn’t much of a combat specialist. She could use a knife, but she just carried standard defensive tools.
It, along with Persua’s [Double Step] Skill, were enough to put her on the path to being a Courier. Unfortunately, much to Persua’s regret, her backers had disappeared after the Circle had vanished. She had the ring, but the chance to rise in the Circle’s esteem and be granted further artifacts and favors was now lost. Thanks to, once again, Ryoka Griffin.
She had never learned [Double Step]. Instead, Persua was a [Gymnast], a class unique only in that it was green. She was not much richer than before, and she had come close to death so many times.
