Most people at the Rebellion adventure, or at least most people who want to fight. It's the way to get more powerful, and they need powerful people if they are to stand up to Rekenber. And they usually adventure alone—which is to say, they try to find parties outside the Rebellion itself. This is partly to diffuse attention but also partly as "recruitment tactics", by sounding out more people to maybe help them and join their cause. This is a vector of risk, but command judges that risk worth it, as they are still nowhere near the numbers they had before that tragic day years ago. It does, however, also mean that command needs to be very sure, not only of your loyalties, but also of your ability to judge people's characters and control secrets, before allowing you to go out.

It had been tacitly understood that Gonie would be an exception to that last bit, though: his near inability to speak renders him not an amazing recruiter, so the main reason to send him out would in fact be just to train him up. And, relatedly, it was also tacitly understood that he'd adventure with Lucky: most people who know them aren't really clear on what exactly their relationship is, but everyone is very clear on the fact that Gonie will follow Lucky to Niflheim and back if she needs him to, and her loyalty to him is not any less strong.

But the nornir did not smile upon them.

He and Lucky were sent out on a sabotage mission to the Regenschirm Somatology Laboratory, following some leads and evidence collected over a long time regarding the horrible experiments being performed in it on people. It was meant to be a simple mission, more recon than anything, they just wanted to give Rekenber a bit of a headache and the only reason for Lucky to be there was so they'd have an informed guess about what best to explode. But their intelligence on the place's security turned out to have been a gross underestimate, for a very peculiar reason: it seems that the basement, which had been their access point, has been entirely abandoned and taken over by the powerful and poorly-controlled results of the lab's experiments. While they are passive and dormant when left on their own, upon seeing anything move they are stirred into a frenzy and the facility's alarms are all immediately notified.

They were caught—or Gonie was. Lucky evaded detection, but Gonie was identified, and had to trigger his suicide contingency.

So now Rekenber is aware that Gonie exists, and has probably put two and two together and guessed who his parents were, from family resemblance alone. Hopefully they'll believe he's a lone gunman, but... that does mean that he needs to lay low for a while, and that when he does go out again he cannot be seen with anyone from the Rebellion. Including Lucky.

...but he'd never dream of holding her back.

So she starts taking bounties.

She's not going through the Academy nor joining a Guild—what Guild would she even join?—which means that she doesn't have a nice path laid out for her like she imagines most adventurers do, with a planned Skill dependency tree that she's going down and official training sessions with veterans of her trade—who'd even be a veteran, for her? But the Rebellion does have its small library of Skills, collected and curated over the years, which she will be able to make use of as she gets stronger.

Her first Skill tree of choice is Gun (that's not literally the name of the Skill tree but it amuses her to call it that). Skills related to aiming, precision, and marksmanship, except it's the less popular cousins to the ones used by archers, that can deal with firearms. She's not going to be a close combatant, and the Rebellion does have a preference for guns, so it stands to reason. But actually, there's a second part to her reasoning there: those same Skills can help with the deployment of her alchemical concoctions. She carries multiple vials of those with her, and with some custom tools based off modified guns she can launch them, spray them, and pour them at her targets.

But beyond Gun she is also going to be targetting various generic Skills, especially passive ones, to make her a lot more able to adventure: Regeneration, Improved Dodge, Improved Defence, Improved Dexterity, Increase Agility, and so on. She's not sure what role exactly she'll be taking in a party, especially since the most important thing she'll be bringing to the table is her ability to build cool stuff and that's pretty flexible, but all of those seem just pretty useful to have regardless of anything.

She'll probably need to modify her legs to be able to respond to the automatic passive mental states triggered by stuff like Improved Dodge, though, since those tend to assume you can move your legs.

Anyway! She starts taking bounties. It's been over a year (maybe two? she didn't keep track) since she started roaming around Einbech and Einbroch—with Magenta and occasionally Gonie in tow—to kill weak rapidly-respawning creatures for the first few trickles of Stat increases and Skill potential, and they definitely don't give her anything anymore. Plus, with her Regeneration passive and the condensed red potion dispenser in her legs she mostly no longer needs an active healer in her party. Or a party at all, really, at least to go after rank 0 Eden bounties until she gets to rank 1. And her tech probably means that she's able to take on more difficult bounties than would be predicted by her "power level" but cheating is just technique.

The bounty she's eyeing right now, however, is very much not rated for solo play.

"You're new."

Just because she can't walk doesn't mean she can't jump, although in this case it's almost entirely metaphorical as she didn't program her legs to respond to her being startled by changing their hovering level at all. Her heart is still hammering in her throat all the same. "Where did you come from?"

"I was right here!" He extends his hand. "Taharqi, rogue, rank 1, enchanted to meet you."

She feels like this guy does not know how to give the best of first impressions. Still, being a prankster is hardly the worst possible character flaw someone can have. She shakes his hand. "Lucky, who even knows, rank 1, cannot say the same."

"You know what, I deserve that. I have to say, the robot legs are one Hel of a conversation starter, what's up with them?"

"The legs my parents gave me didn't work so I made my own."

His eyebrows shoot up. "You made these?"

"I feel like I should be offended by the surprise."

"No, no, I mean, it's really cool, I've never seen anything like it."

"If you had I'd definitely want their contact information, exchange tricks and all."

"So what-all do they do, I'm guessing it's not just the hovering?"

"It's not! For one it can go really fast—haven't tested it against a powerful rogue or archer or a wolf but it's a lot faster than a regular person running—but I've also got a bunch of condensed potions in it that I can use on myself at will, and the gun," she unholsters it, "is also connected to them and so I can shoot using the same mental interface rather than needing the trigger—though obviously the trigger still works, multiple failsafes and all—so I can also shoot potions, acids and poisons at foes, restorative potions at allies—I've got a spray setting and a focused fire setting and I've been working on miniature capsules for quick delivery but I don't quite have it down yet—"

"Um." She blinks, realising that she's not back home and strangers are a lot less used to how much she talks. "Sorry."

"No no don't apologise that was really cool." Vallynn would find it fascinating and have a bunch of questions about it, but Taharqi is just getting seduced by the practical versatility. "Makes you a one-woman party."

"Well, not really, at least not yet. And there's always the benefit of multiple people watching each other's backs, plus specialisation is good for production. I don't know what role I'll specialise in but once I've started adventuring with a party more I'll find my niche."

"Support," he suggests.

She looks at him and tilts her head.

"The market for healers is filled with Priests of the Church, no one else's got a good Heal—"