Berdol and the electric dire rat square off for a few moments, each measuring the other up. I’m pretty confident the catkin will win without too much trouble, but I still pay attention to see if I can learn anything about how he fights and how his affinity works.

The rat isn’t going to just give him the victory, though, and charges and releases a strong bolt of lightning! As soon as it starts to move, Berdol swiftly changes the position of his floating blades.

“Chain Link!” The lightning flies and catches the tip of one floating blade, flows down and arcs to the second, before arcing to the ground. The lightning makes a bit of a messy circle, but it’s still more than enough to ensure the energy can’t reach him. He’s already moving before the lightshow is even finished, and gives the rat two slashes with the blades he holds, before following up with two slashes from the still-hot floating ones.

“Flashing Steel!”

After a barrage like that, the rat can only slump, defeated, and Berdol checks to see if there’s anything he’d like before he sheathes his blades. He looks around for a few moments before spotting Nova some distance away, watching him and waiting for him to follow her.

As he does, I consider how he handled the electricity. While I didn’t exactly have any fancy tools to measure the magnetic fields, my gut says his metal affinity isn’t magnetic… or if it is, he can’t use it to influence the electricity. If he could, he probably would have only needed one blade to direct the current. Instead, it looked to me like he simply gave the lightning a better path of least resistance to ground out.

I watch him fight a few other of my denizens, and I get the feeling he’s just an experienced fighter, rather than someone who knows how electricity and magnetism work together. His whole style is about flowing motions and subtle setups. It’s not much of a stretch to assume he’s dealt with a few lightning attacks before and knows it likes metal better than just about anything.

Nova also watches him fight, and the bond is practically glowing with inspiration as she sees how he wields his affinity. Even a widow is no match for him, though he does treat the fight with care. He even pulls out two more blades to dance with, and I have trouble keeping track of all of them. So does the widow, who finds her webs sheared through before she can use them, and herself constantly harassed by flickering whispers of sharpness.

She manages to land a solid kick with two legs, sending him back and his held weapons flying. As she lunges forward, I almost tell her to stand down before Berdol smiles.

“Irising End!”

All six blades swoop in on separate arcs, like a brutal mix of a camera lens and a guillotine, and the widow falls with two thuds. Berdol exhales as he stands and wipes his blades clean. “Hard to keep all those eyes looking where I want…” he mutters to himself. He considers the corpse for a few moments before continuing on. I don’t know if he has any of the… whatsit skill. What Fredie’s still picking up. Butchery? Field dressing! Yeah, I don’t think he has that. I bet he knows how to mine, it’d probably be a cakewalk for him with his affinity.

I poke Nova to lead him towards Violet before heading to the lava tubes, figuring he could be a good first test for her fighting scions. I don’t think Nose is really up for fighting, but Onyx definitely is. It looks like she has a sharp-fingered gauntlet now, and it also looks like Legs has gained the simple title of Smith.

Man, I need to see if I can trade her some rooms or something. My forge and smelters aren’t bad, but Violet’s metalworks is so much better equipped to make quality stuff. Berdol is a bit confused when Nova leads him outside my territory, and looks a bit more confused once he sees Violet’s mining nodes.

“Is that Thedeim’s expansion? It doesn’t look like anything for a dwarf to be particularly interested in…” he trails off, glancing around before looking to Nova, who shakes her head. He continues to look at her, confused, before she nods towards where Onyx is slipping from a crack in the wall.

“A gremlin… gremlin scion? What… oh.” He chuckles as he seems to put it together. “Right, I had heard Thedeim had a protege. I thought she was more of a toybox, though?” he asks, eyeing Onyx. The gremlin is smiling wide, looking eager to fight, but also not looking too threatening.

Berdol seems to study her for a few moments, before shrugging. “Well, she doesn’t seem like she actually wants to hurt me. She looks like a new adventurer, eager to learn. Is that right? You want to fight to learn?”

Onyx’s smile widens and she nods, and does her best to take a fighting stance. The catkin looks amused and draws his more normal daggers. “Alright, I can do that. You don’t mind if I finish the lesson properly when we’re done?” he asks, and Onyx continues to smile, eager to learn. A bit of time respawning is worth the knowledge. Besides, she’ll probably earn a fair bit of mana for Violet from it, too.

He nods at that, and takes a few seconds to try to figure out where to start. He shakes his head and sheathes one of his daggers as he steps forward, and motions for her to mimic his stance. “This is why I don’t teach much at the guild. My style is pretty unique, but I think I can help you with some of the basics. Gremlins are shadow affinity, right?”

When she nods, he continues, moving to adjust her stance a little. He keeps her in a pretty low stance, the gauntlet forward and hand loose and slightly open. “You’ll probably want a second gauntlet when you can. Close-in work is better with the ability for both hands to do work.”

He guides her through a few basic swipes and grabs, before standing and speaking again. “So, shadow affinity. I don’t have any of it, but my style would work really well with it. The whole point is to keep your opponent guessing. If they know where an attack is coming from, they can react to it. So, use some misdirection. Here, try this.”

He curls and flourishes his fingers like a magician, and Onyx does her best to mimic the complex motion, catching some of the light in a display that just naturally draws the eyes. Berdol smiles at that and nods.

“That’s the idea, you’ve got it. Now, if you do that in a fight, you can try to keep a foe’s attention on that hand while the other gets into position for a proper strike.”

Onyx is nodding and already practicing the motion, not noticing as the catkin steps back a few paces and draws both his daggers once more.

“Alright, let’s do a spar. Make sure you pay attention to how I move. Daggers are a bit different from gauntlets, but you can probably fill in the gaps on your own. Ready?”

The gremlin scion nods and takes her low stance, and Berdol smiles at his swift learner as he takes his own. From the start, I can see him holding back, moving much slower than against the widow. He scores several shallow cuts on Onyx’s arm as he slips through her guard, teaching her where to tighten it up with the pain of experience.

While the transfer is a lot more muted than with my own scions, I can feel her having fun even with the pain, and Violet is having some conflicting emotions about it, too. She’s happy for her scion, though not very happy to see her hurt. As she slows from the wounds, Berdol speaks up once more.

“I think that’s enough practice for now. I hope we can practice some more later.” One quick stab and Onyx dissipates like smoke in the wind. Violet is conflicted about that, too, but I think the countdown timer for Onyx’s respawn helps ease her concern. Yeah, it was weird for me the first time Tiny ate it. Onyx will be fine. In fact, she’ll probably be itching to do it again, heh.

Teaching done, Nova leads the catkin to the lava tubes. He looks around in surprise as they get there. “Huh, you really can tell when an area is a work in progress with him, can’t you? It just feels like there’s… more to be done in here. Niches he hasn’t filled yet.”

Nova nods at that, then kinda awkwardly sits there, uncertain what to do next. Bardol looks a bit confused for a few seconds as well, before smiling in realization. “Ah, right. We’re here. Well… can you show me around? The Seaside Forge thinks there’s new metals to be had here.”

Nova is uncertain if she should, or if she’s even allowed to, so I pat the bond with some reassurances. Delvers are technically why I made the nodes, so there’s no problem with her guiding him to at least a few of them, if she doesn’t mind.

It seems she doesn’t mind at all, and she eagerly shows him around. The crucible ants get an odd look from him, as do their nests. His interest is definitely piqued when he sees the special nodes. He uses his affinity to get a good chunk each of mythril and orichalcum ores to bring back, and I get a good chunk of mana from him finishing his quest.

“Looks like his hunch was right. You’re going to be up to your ears in miners,” he says with a chuckle, and laughs as Nova tilts her head in confusion. “Or whatever you use to hear with, hah! I’ll probably be down here more, too, once Hrunter explains the kind of things he can make with this stuff.”

His quest complete, he bids her goodbye and makes his way back to the surface. Nova, rather than follow, decides to practice her own affinity. She makes a nice mess of the tunnel as she lobs bits of magma around, and I’m looking forward to seeing what she can manage. I don’t know if what Berdol was doing would be more or less dangerous with magma instead of steel, but I wouldn’t want to be the target either way.