“Well, this is a bit unexpected,” Ben said as he found himself being hugged by two familiar faces, namely his old friends Steph and Will.

“When we heard this was happening we figured we might be able to find you here,” Will told him as Steph went to give Thera a hug as well, being expertly avoided despite the amulet he’d made last time hanging around her neck. “Gotta say though, I didn’t expect you to be one of the guests of honour.”

“Ha, well technically my teacher is, I’m just taking his place because he doesn’t want to deal with it.”

“And I appreciate it,” The yeti said as he ruffled his hair and walked off with a wave. “I’m going to go chat with the goblins for a bit, try not to get into any trouble while I’m not watching you.”

“When do I ever get into trouble?” He called back, seeing Thera grab her face from the nerve of him asking something like that in the corner of his eye.

“You literally got into trouble the moment we got here,” She told him dryly, drawing looks from his other two friends.

“Oh my god Ben, what happened this time?” Steph asked as he gave an awkward chuckle.

“Um, why don’t we chat while I work a bit? Speaking of, Steph I see you’re wearing the cloak I helped make, hand it over and I’ll redo the enchantments on it,” He told her as he pulled out some of his rings from his bag and gave the broadest of details of what had happened since they’d seen one and other last, doing his best not to say anything that would be too worrying as he did while they caught him up as well.

“So aside from taking the trial you suggested, which I really would have liked more warning about ‘cause it sucked, all of our time since has been devoted to our training,” Will explained. “The good news though is that we can say we’re finally fully competent using our awakened skills, just took longer than either of us would have liked to get to that point.”

“Ha, well glad to see things have been going well. I would have told you more if I could’ve, but I think I was only at the first level of sacrilege at the time, it was hard enough to tell you what I did.”

Myriad, they’re obviously hiding the more worrying bits from me the way I am from them. There’s no way their training hasn’t left them putting their lives on the line to grow stronger. That reminds me, I should make them some better items if I can. Gotta know what sort of things they usually wear when off facing whatever life-threatening disasters heroes have to go up against.

He was going to rebuke his god, but Steph called out, commenting on what he’d said. “Wait, at the time? What level are you now?”

“Don’t worry about it,” He told her, brushing it off with his better news. “Instead, focus on the fact that you’re looking at someone with level eight enchanting and level nine crafting.”

“What?” Steph yelled, before taking a far quieter tone. “Ben, we’ve only been on this planet for what, two and a half years? How did you gain so many levels?”

“I’ve just made it a very productive time,” He said with a shrug. “I probably had it easier since I didn’t need to adapt to my skills at all, they were all weak enough that I could train in earnest from the moment I learned how to use them.”

Will scoffed. “Ben, if it was that easy then you’d see significantly more ninth-level skill holders. Hell, you’d see more awakened skill holders too.”

“What can I say, I like what I do.”

“That’s not even mentioning how weird your mind’s become,” Thera said, creating more curious looks that led to both of them wanting to try connecting to him to see and experience the change, Steph looking queasy after and Will swearing up a storm.

“Dude, what the hell is happening in your head?”

“A side effect of two mind skills synergizing, I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” He told them, trying to brush it off. “I usually hide all but one of them when I connect with people but I figured I’d give you a taste of the full thing. What do you say? I learned how to make items that can carry mind effects, if you want some I personally find having ten available to me to be pretty handy.”

“Hard pass.”

“I feel like I’d go insane if I was to use something like that,” Steph said as Thera laughed.

“Most people just barf if they wear it too long, I thought I was going to the one time he got me to try.”

“Man, I’m never going to sell any of the stock at the shop, am I?” He muttered in the face of them all shooting down his offer. Even if it took a bit to get used to, there was no denying it was handy, they were all just being too judgy.

So we’ll scratch that from the list of potential items to make them. Fine, they don’t deserve something as handy as extra minds, I’ll make them something boring like new weapons or armour.

“Anyway, how long are you guys going to be here for?” He asked them. “Admittedly I’m going to be pretty busy, but it would be great if you’d stick around to see the results, maybe I could treat you to some good old-fashioned earth cooking too.”

“We live in a city with a gate so we’ll keep popping through,” Steph agreed excitedly. “When we visited Anailia and saw Karly we had the spaghetti recipe you created, I didn’t think I’d ever get to enjoy that again.”

“Ha, well I made a few different ones since and have ideas for more. We’ll have to make a night of it, see just how good all of my recipes stack up against your memories.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They all continued to chat as the day passed and Ben made the occasional sale. It seemed they had managed to get the week of the contest off from their training given how well they’d been doing and were planning on spending most days in Allfaith.

Steph especially seemed keen to spend more time with Thera, a fact the cloaked girl didn’t quite know how to handle but tried to be open to regardless. They had gone through a pretty significant experience together after all, and she thought Steph was nice enough so she cautiously accepted her conversation.

It was as Ben was looking into the crowd, discussing ideas for what he might make with the other three and making notes that he managed to see two more familiar faces. People he hadn’t seen since he first arrived on the world, two more humans that even if he hadn’t been particularly close to he couldn’t help but be excited to see as he called out to them, drawing their attention as he did.

“Hey, Amy and Jake! It’s been a while!”