She sat down across from me without asking.
I was eating — a bowl of something the tavern called stew, which was generous, but it was hot and I was hungry. I looked up. She was maybe early thirties, dark circles under her eyes, two swords on her back that I could see even sitting down. She looked at me the way people look at a price tag they're not sure about.
"You're the one who's been buying up grey scrolls," she said.
"I buy scrolls, yes. For personal use. Completely normal hobby."
"You enhanced Deval's Fire Arrow last week. He got nine uses out of a five-charge scroll."
Deval had a big mouth, I noted internally. I'd enhanced the scroll as a favor — he'd helped me carry herb crates and I'd felt like being decent. Apparently he'd told people.
"Could've miscounted," I said.
"He didn't miscount." She put both hands flat on the table. "I have two swords. The left one has a hairline fracture in the hilt that affects the balance. The right one has edge degradation from three years of use. Standard enhancement won't take on either of them — I've had two B-rank enchanters look at them."
I looked at her. "And?"
"And I want to know if your skill is different."
Interesting, I thought. Very interesting. B-rank enchanters couldn't take — that means the standard single-pass limit hit and stopped. Which means my stacking should theoretically—
"What do you pay?" I said.
"If it works, whatever you ask. Within reason."
"Show me the swords."
She was called Rena. She'd been adventuring for twelve years, which she said the way people say things they're proud of and tired of in equal measure. B-rank, recently dropped from A due to an injury that had affected her timing.
The swords were good — proper equipment, well-maintained aside from the issues she'd described. I held the right one first. Ran one enhancement pass. Felt the edge respond, improve, and then stop — the metal had hit its current ceiling.
I ran a second pass.
The ceiling moved.
Oh, I thought, keeping my face neutral. Oh, that's very good. That's — okay, that's what I thought but it's different when you feel it actually—
Third pass. The edge sharpened further, past where the metal should have been able to go given its grade. Fourth pass. The sword was vibrating faintly in my hands, a sensation I'd only felt once before on a test scroll. Fifth.
I set it down.
Rena picked it up. Tested the balance. Ran her thumb along the flat, which is how you check edge without actually cutting yourself if you know what you're doing. Then she went very still.
"How," she said.
"I stack the passes. No cap on my skill."
"Enhancement skills always have a—"
"Mine doesn't."
She looked at the sword. Then at me. I could see her doing math in her head — the same math I'd been doing for two weeks. The implications running out in front of her.
"The left one," she said. "The fracture."
I picked it up. This was trickier — structural damage, not just edge condition. I hadn't tried this before. I ran the first pass slowly, feeling for the fracture line. It was there, a faint wrongness in the metal's internal structure, like a word spelled slightly wrong.
I pushed the enhancement into that spot specifically.
It didn't fix completely — I didn't have the skill level for that yet. But it settled. The stress on the hilt redistributed. The balance came back about sixty percent of the way.
"That's not a repair," I said. "I don't have the level for a full fix yet. But it's usable now without the fracture affecting your grip."
Rena was quiet for a moment. Then: "What do you want for this."
"A hundred and twenty silver." I'd done the math already. Fair market rate for two enhanced weapons from a B-rank enchanter, which was the closest comparable service. "And if I improve the skill further and the swords need another pass, you pay half that rate for the follow-up."
She didn't negotiate. She just nodded once, the way people nod when they've decided something for real.
"I have a dungeon contract," she said. "D-rank forest clearing, Thornwood outer ring. Two-person minimum, I'm one short. Standard split."
Don't, I thought immediately. You don't need this. You have scrolls, you have a plan, you don't need to go into a dungeon with a stranger—
"Pay rate?" I said.
She told me.
That's actually pretty good, I thought. That's two weeks of herb gathering in one job.
"I don't fight," I said. "I do logistics, scroll support, and enhancement prep. You do the actual hitting things."
"Fine."
"And if you run at something without telling me, I'm leaving you there."
"I don't run at things."
One of you is being honest, I thought, and wasn't sure which one I meant.
"Fine," I said. "When do we leave?"