Rise of the Business 49. Pugilist

Livias Skill [Pitch Perfect] had worked ahead of her brain and found the words that might work on the experienced [Healer] who had to learn to watch people die in her arms and keep thinking of ways to help the next time. They worked less well on someone who had just lost three of his siblings.

The family of Sten was used to tragedy, it was true, but that didn make it easier to lose someone who had been there the entire seventeen years of your life. All three of the siblings had been older than Sten, and though their father was known as one of the most formidable fighters in the village, and had managed to keep their constantly pregnant mother safe through thick and thin, the style of fighting that he taught his children was one involving a great deal of risk.

That did not mean everybody in the family had a careless streak, as some in Salcret were wont to say. Sten had done what he could to prevent tragedy striking again, it was why a year ago he had become an Aspirant at the healers house. This was despite the constant mockery of not just his father and their rivals in the village, but of his siblings, some of whom were now dead. He had been an Aspirant for a year, despite being offered a low tier Skill. All he had learned had proven useless in the face of his siblings fate.

That was why his father had finally snapped and told him enough was enough. Sten was now a level 4 [Pugilist]. His father had leveled him there, all in one night.

What the old man didn know, what nobody knew and the thing that was eating Sten up inside, was that Sten had been offered a tier 10 Skill when becoming an Aspiring [Pugilist]. Anybody in his family learning of that fact scared Sten to death.

He might have been able to save them. He just didn want to fight.

[That was a ** show.]

Livias first attempt at recruitment went about the opposite way she had been hoping. Although learning about Sten did provide some hope for the future. A fighter who wanted to be a healer, Livia knew of ways to work with that when upgrading the Class. But with the first impression she had made it would probably be smarter to send someone like Roldy to speak with the guy.

She went to chill out at Lenas and ordered herself a drink to take the edge off the day. Just an hour in she spotted Oscar heading for the guild house, presumably looking for Livia, so she called him over and told him how her day went.