She's willing to pay the price for halberd-carrying guy. Let's go. He can even pick the place.

He picks an all-you-can-eat place! Barbeque. Lots of delicious smelling meat. He talks very loudly all the time! Does she want to hear about the time they were trapped in a dungeon for a week! Or the time two vampires were dueling each other and the Fall Divers got hired to watch for confused zombies wandering away from the messy little vampire war! Or the time two different dukes hired Fall Diver teams for illegal operations without realizing it and then they figured it out and arrested one of the dukes! Or the time a bunch of awakened golems who looked like hot women were causing trouble chasing one of their own and had to be chased away! Because he can tell her about all of this!

She eats her own share of delicious-smelling meat, notes everything down in her mental notebook, and tries to enjoy herself. He's a bit louder company than she'd prefer, though. 

What's the damage for the meal when they're done?

14 copper plus tip. Apparently they have a special price for Loud Guy, whose name is Brock. In defense of the price, it's very good food, and Brock seems to like her a lot now.

She goes back for seconds, then tips the rest of the silver. Probably worth it, call it her signing party. Despite Brock being pretty loud she enjoyed his stories, especially the one that was probably about W. It's a useful window into day-to-day operations, too. 

(She carefully shelves the anger. Expenses like this are normal.)

And after that? Back to her new dorm to shower and sleep. She has a big day ahead of her tomorrow.

Brock cheerfully confirms that W was the one who was running away! Some of the nobles wanted to lock her up or kick her out to save trouble but the other golems were not respecting the rule of law at ALL and she was much more sympathetic, so morals won out. The other golems couldn't really be held as they come back when blown up, but eventually got fed up with constantly dying and left.

Her training the next morning begins with sword drills in the courtyard. This sword trainer does things intensely, and with live steel.

Her whole body aches again. It's glorious, seeing her real blade make strikes and guards she only ever did with wood before, but steel is heavier than wood and she's being forced to a whole new level of training. It's like her very first day all over again. It's humbling. 

And something in her rears up and spits at that: she will not be bested.

Halfway through sword training her fellow trainees show up along with another instructor. The Lucille is training with a heavy staff but clearly not used to combat (though she gets frequent breaks to heal everyone's minor to moderate injuries), Varrin is training with a short, curved blade and integrating his martial arts-based water manipulation into melee, and W is training in - deliberately getting in the way of blows and physically corralling their trainer, not letting anything touch the squad of dummies behind her.

Her face, when she intercepts a blow, is not entirely the grimace of pain nor entirely neutral as if she doesn't feel it.

Interesting. She bites her lip. 

Back to sword, she can't let sex cloud her focus right now.

Now it's lunchtime! Time flies when you're sweating, huh? After lunch will be some theory work, drilling knowledge of fighting and tactics and the various monsters they might face into their heads.

(W heads straight off before anyone can talk to her, out the front door and vanishing into the city.)

She goes out into the nearby streets, gets some foodstall food, and comes back - she hasn't had time to lay in groceries yet. A gyro for the low low cost of 6 copper pennies. She crunches away at it while resting in the shade. It's really delicious. Better than the cafeteria food, or maybe it's just that she's gotten bored of that. 

She's still fatigued going into her second class, but her morale is better.

The golem girl shows up for theory lessons precisely on time, down to the second, looking annoyed.

They're sitting at desks for theory lessons, but the theory teacher tries to put them in a relaxed mood and have them move around so they'll absorb the information better. There's a lot to learn, all of it related to fighting or how to evaluate enemies or how to negotiate better pay for fighting or how to avoid fighting and risking wounds and costs when it's not necessary.

At the end of the lecture the trainer leads a group exercise where he asks them to formulate a defense of a mining village against an unknown number of human bandits, but at least fifty, all relatively low-level. The terrain is mountainous; He has a map. They should assume the enemy is smart and observant. All they have are themselves, whatever weapons and gear they would be carrying, and the mining village's contents and population - which can be used in the defense, but is the very thing they're trying to protect.

The mountains are a natural defense... Do they already have a perimeter wall? If not they'll need to build one to spare the houses. Some outbuildings might not be savable. What are these bandits armed with? The villagers will have to participate in the defense, that's clear from the numbers - how can they organize it so they can break off pieces of the enemy force and have the villagers with spears and picks fall on lone bandits en masse? A deliberate gap in the defenses, made to lure the bandits in?

It would be foolish of the enemy to try a massed charge against a Bright mage, so an attack by stealth is more likely... hmmm. 

The miners do already have a perimeter wall. Somewhat distressingly for one with access Bright Magic spells, it's made of wood. They don't know what the bandits are armed with besides 'probably not anything SUPER expensive'. It's an interesting puzzle and the trainer lets them workshop it with each other for a while, then saves their work and notes so far to continue another day.

And then their five hours for the day are up! They're expected back tomorrow, though. She might be able to catch W before she leaves this time.

She has a little time before her university class but not much. 

"W!", she calls. "I'd like to talk to you about something."

"-Sure but make it quick, I got stuff what needs doing."

"Are you a masochist? Because I have the other half of that kink."

"The guy who made me is super fucked in the head don't wanna talk about it goodbye."

She power-walks out the door.

... okay then. 

She'd better get to class.

Class at Liscor Academy continues much the same as before, just more mono-focused on Bright Magic since the Fall Divers have less ability to train her in that. She's getting closer to learning Flare, which creates intense, blinding light without too much heat. But not there yet.

She goes grocery and homeware shopping. Simple staples, bread eggs milk cheese butter, some cold cuts. She has a stove now (!) but she'll need a frying pan; the clerk tries to upsell her to an auto-spicing model but she can't afford it. She asks what a non-stick enchantment would cost; the resulting pan is 1s 4c, which is slightly steep but probably worth it for how many times she'll use it. And she'll need plates, and cups, and knives, and forks...

She feels a little overwhelmed. She'd always had someone else to do this, before. 

She would make a list in a little notebook but she'd have to buy those things too. 

She needs... So many things. Best to keep it to the minimum. One cup. One plate. One knife. One fork - no, one pair of chopsticks, they'll be cheaper than the metal of the fork. Dish soap to wash it all with. What's she forgetting...? A turner so she can actually flip her eggs on the stove. Okay. Is that everything? That's everything. 

When she finally covers it all she has seven copper left, not counting the money set aside as her food budget for the next six months. That's fun. At least she has a fancy new magic icebox (!!) at home to dump all the food in. She does that. 

Time for a relaxing shower... Damn it, there's no soap or shampoo. Or towels, for that matter. She's going to have to pass and make another run tomorrow. 

She sleeps.

In the morning she makes herself an omelette in her shiny new frying pan. She's never done this before, either. But she gets it right, more or less. It's slightly awkward to eat it with chopsticks, but she's faced bigger indignities. And... 

She earned this. In a way she's never done before. 

It feels good. 

She'd best get to practice, though.

W is there early, unlike last time.

"Hey. Look, if you want to hurt me recreationally, outside of training, I need to- Explain. And also get something out of it. Has the damn gossip about my whole situation gotten around to you yet?"

"I've heard bits and pieces but not the whole story. I'd rather hear it from you."

"Mhm. So, I'm a golem. This body you see? It's not me. I'm an artificial soul, magic and runes shaped into the form of a conscious being. If you blew me up, I would still be there unless some insanely powerful magic, or specialized magic to kill a golem, was involved. I'd form a new body out of the soil and it'd look like rocks at first, but inside of five minutes I'll have hair and clothes and be all conditionally soft and squishy again. Most golems don't look like, well, people made of flesh and bone. Most golems look like animated statues."

She nods. "But you're not most golems, and your creator had... predilictions?"