The brief stop at Port Salvage proceeded smoothly, cargo was offloaded and a speculative cargo was obtained by the purser. Victoria settled things and selected several of her folk for her new team and prepared to board the Alessandrina’s Glory once again.

Tomcat however had mixed fortunes, he discovered that Jessarra had married a local shopkeeper, and he visited her to wish her luck in her new life and to deliver a belated wedding present. When he was looking for Brandalla however her father and brothers accosted him.

It soon became clear to Tomcat that nothing he could say would do him any good, Brandalla’s father just wanted to bleed him mentioning that as a ship’s captain and representative of a shipping company run by his mother he could undoubtedly afford dowries for all his girls and a comfortable room or better yet flat for his mistress. The males of the family hinted at the dire consequences that could follow a refusal.

Despite the fact that for Tomcat the sums requested for Brandalla’s three sisters were paltry he didn’t want to simply hand over the cash to this appallingly mercenary bunch. Using the excuse that he would have to arrange for one of his letters of credit to be converted into cash the arranged to meet the surprisingly unaggrieved relatives plus Brandella on the following day at the Drunken Sailor he headed off to consult with Paris and hopefully, Victoria.

The next day was informative and somewhat depressing for Tomcat but on the whole he was satisfied with his life when he left Port Salvage on the day after that. Victoria and her enlarged retinue had been irritatingly amused at his situation but he grudgingly admitted to himself that if the shoe had been on the other foot he would have been just as amused. He just hoped Garonmouth would go as smoothly.

Alas for Tomcat it did not. As soon as the Alessandrina’s Glory had tied up to the dock and the gangplank had been secured an angry pregnant elf stormed up it and cornered him on the quarterdeck. Numerous ears strained to pick up the elf’s tirade as their owners carried on with their tasks whilst relishing their captain’s discomfort.

Tomcat caved almost without a fight, Heartshorn wanted to meet Mother, all well and good, there might be problems with Marinara but that wasn’t now, she wanted a cabin, she could have the best cabin, she wanted to fetch her songbirds, dogs and cat, fine, at least he now knew what those small fur covered cylinders were, how did anyone tell which end was which? Cat? That was a frigging Lynx! Oh well no matter Mother might find it, no her interesting.

It was a full two hours later before he could proceed with his errands, mentally he added one, he had to procure a male lynx, it might be a trivial revenge for his humiliation but it suited his sense of humour.

It took Tomcat and Fashent the retired servant to locate a suitable plot of land that was available for purchase. They ended up spending more than either wanted but less than the sum Mother had allocated. It was a derelict farm that abutted on the sea cliffs and was almost mid way between Garonmouth and the fishing village of Seercove. As Fashent had relatives in both locations it was ideal.

The badgers were soon driving a well filled wagon to the farm along with some local craftsmen. The old farmhouse was demolished and a new, rather more prosperous building was erected closer to the cliffs. A small shrine to Ocidon was added near the house. No sooner had the human craftsmen left satisfied than the Badger Folk started tunnelling down, they were soon joined by the meerkat folk and a few man-rats.

They were interrupted when Arbol’tar, a taciturn middle aged priest of Ocidon, turned up having heard the rumour that some eccentric old geezer had built a shrine to Ocidon on his land. Arbol’tar recognised Fashent and greeted him with a smile. The shrine was well built and was presided over by a beautiful new style marble statue of Ocidon. But it contained a tiny open chapel presided over by the statue of a leaping dolphin. Arbol’tar was regarding this with some indignation when he sensed his God’s amused approval of the addition. That was good enough for Arbol’tar and he consecrated the shrine in front of Fashent, eight badger folk and numerous small curious animals.

As soon as the badgers had the docking cavern partially ready Tomcat took his ship out to sea and sailed north. He heaved to when near the docking cave and ordered the man-rat’s four catamarans lowered along with the eight man-rats that were crewing them for the short trip.

Then it was full sail for home.

* * * INTERLUDE * * *

Mary found herself along with her lawyer in the rather spartan interrogation room of the local police station, or thanks to her mama’s influence the local cop shop. They were currently seated across from two of the local detectives.

Mary just sat back in the creaking chair she had been offered eliciting some muted cracking sounds. “Hey is this chair safe?”

Call me Trev her lawyer looked at his client in irritation just in time to see the chair in question collapse depositing his client on the floor amidst splinters and broken wood.

Well that resulted in a fairly prolonged hiatus while lawyer and police negotiated and new chair was produced. Mary for her part just watched with a slight smile and said as little as possible just raising an eyebrow mockingly when one of the detectives mentioned excessive force. As for the accusation that she was bulletproof that elicited a two word reply, “Am not.”

“So how do you explain that you were unhurt by the two shots that hit you?”

“My fairy godmother visited me last night, she helped me out.”

Trev frowned, “you should tell the truth, fairy tales won’t help either of us.”

Mary shrugged, “’K, can’t explain ‘cause I dunno why.”

‘Well that’s today shot, wonder when the feds will arrive?’

* * *

“Tremillio, Peppone the chief wants a word with you now.”

The two agents shared a look and headed to the chief’s office, once there they knocked, entered and took the indicated seats.

“Morning, I think I can safely say you haven’t got anything urgent on today?” he paused for a second before continuing, “one of yours has been involved in a – affray and has been taken in for questioning, just routine from what I understand. The thing is some researchers from the CDC want to talk with her and we were asked to ensure that she would be present to use our secure video conference facilities.”

Tremillio glanced sideways at Peppone before asking, “Who and where do we find her.”

“Ms Silvestre, she caved in the shooter’s chest with one punch, coroner has cause of death as massive blunt trauma to the chest and shattered the knife wielder’s jaw with a backhand slap. She was hit twice by the perps pistol and once by a knife but suffered only some bruising.”

“Are we sure the bullets hit?” asked Peppone.

“Yes. Go get her before the police release her and see if you can persuade her to attend the teleconference. If you can persuade her to undergo a full medical all the better, we need to get all the information we can on the affected.” Then after Tremillio and Peppone rose to leave, “take Ceejay with you, he’s a civilian helper we recruited on your recommendation,” the chief glanced down at his desk, selected a sheet of paper and held it out, “here’s what we have on our Computer Wizard lvl three, he’s got the evaluate skill.”

The two agents returned to their desks and quickly updated themselves, Tremillio looked up when she heard Peppone curse. She accepted his invitation and moved to where she could see his laptop’s screen. The clip was on youtube and it was obviously taken by one of the officers bodycams.

The two shut down their computers and hurried out pausing only to locate Ceejay Lockley before grabbing a roomy SUV. During the ride they interrogated Ceejay trying to understand what he did, thinking back Tremillio asked Ceejay to use his evaluate on her and let her know what he found out.

Ceejay did so and replied, “Amanda Tremillio Race Human Class N/A Level N/A.”

Tremillio narrowed her eyes in suspicion, “Is that all? No middle name, no value for Strength and Intelligence?”

“Um no, I can tell you mine but evaluate only gives the basics, name, race, class and level.”

Tremillio addressed Peppone, “Ms Silvestre evaluated me and Muller and told us our strength and intelligence.”

They arrived at the police station and presented their credentials, after some explanations they were shown into a interrogation room containing their target and three other people.

“Why Agent Tremillio, nice to meet you again, who are your friends, this is Trev Malvoisin my lawyer,” said Mary as they entered the room.

* * *

Introduction followed and the discussions that ensued soon had Mary bored to tears so she opened up her system interface and started to peruse options. Storage devices looked good, she’d always wanted a bag of holding as her purse seemed to be forever overflowing. She had enough saved points to get the skills needed to acquire the skill and the minimums to use it so she quietly entertained herself learning enchanting. Then something flipped and she was inundated by a spate of messages from the system.

‘’K lesse what the beep happened now.’

She slowly scrolled down the list, ‘so conditions met, mmm, race change, class updated and level up times two.’

A now worried Mary called up her status to check on the damage. ‘Race? What the? Human / Dungeon Core. So class? Oceanic Ranger subclass Enchanter. What happened to Scholar? Um lesse, Enchanter supersedes Scholar, no skills lost. Whew so ‘K, Level? Thirteen! When did I even achieve ten?’ Some more frantic message scanning, ‘right the fight! Um I really have to go through all these beep system messages more often, now can I hide my status? Um, maybe, right I’ll try that.’

Mary surfaced under the bemused gazes of all present.

“It’s ok, as this is a safe location the System has just hit her with a slew of urgent messages. Mind if I ask what?” said Ceejay.

“Yeah...” Mary looked at her lawyer who gave the arranged signal to answer with a minimum of information. “Class modification, Scholar into Enchanter an’ multiple level ups due to the change an’ the small contretemps earlier.”

“A magic class, cool, can you enchant my tablet?” asked Ceejay producing said tablet.

Mary studied it for a moment, “most possibilities are greyed, could toughen it an’ boost signal strength maybe.”

“Never mind that, Mary your lawyer agreed that we can ask you if you would allow us to take the two of you to where we have a secure teleconference set up, some very important people want to speak with you.”

Mary travelled in her lawyer’s car as they followed the government approved black SUV, she made use of the journey to inform him about the blue screens and the apparent race changes citing the British couple who had attended her barbeque. She also mentioned the previous visits by the FBI and what had been said.

Trev mulled over his client’s story and only the very apparent government interest gave it any credence, so he outlined what to avoid saying while keeping his eyes on the road.